If You Want X, Then Why Do Y?

— body language by Weddie Thiên  —

 

A question can land like a slap on the cheek,
Or open a door, depending who speaks.
If the thing that you want is a shimmering X,
Then why do you do Y? What comes next?
Drain out the blaming, let all of it dry,
And a very good question is left standing by.

​

Ask it, but ask it with blame set aside:
What is it you think that your Y will provide?
And how do you know it? Did you test it before?

The question is honest. The question's a door.

​

You wanted some energy, wanted it now,
So you drank down a coffee. Twenty minutes, and pow!
You had tested it, timed it. It works. It is true.
So the question’s been answered. You know X will come through.
But you don't love the coffee. You love what it brings.
Y’s only a toll booth. It's never the thing.
Show a road that is free, one as easy as breath,
And that toll booth stands empty. Pass through with no debt.

​

So the Y that you're doing is only the tip
Of a sentence you carry, tucked under your lip:
"This will get me to that," and away your feet go.
So to ask why you do it is: what do you know?

​

You buckle your seatbelt each time in the car,
And the payoff comes never, or nearly, by far.
No glow, no confirming, no proof you can spy.
Just a belief, all alone, and it's driving that Y.

​

For it isn't the odds by themselves. It's the size.
Take your X, and discount it by chance, and be wise,
Then weigh it 'gainst Y, with its cost and its time.
If it's bigger, then Y is well worth every dime.

​

Now the coffee, you tested with your own hands and head,
So a study that scolds it would go by unread.
But the belt came from others, from testimony told,
Though your body knew physics when a bus once stopped cold.

​

Now whom do you trust? There's the hinge on the door.
One will trust a big trial with those stats and the score.
One will trust a grandmother, a lineage, a tale.
Two who want the same X set two opposite sails.

​

And suppose you love praise and you shrink from the blame.
Then the facts go to fog, and the “facts” aren't the same.
For the Y isn't for X. It's to stay the sort of one…
Who is nodded at, approved of, when the nodding is done.
And the X was a cover story, whispered so mild
By the House Of Good And Bad that seduced the young child.

​

You are choosing with partly, sort of, maybe you know,
In percentages, guesses, and you still have to go.
There's a chance for the bike thief. You leave the bike unchained,
For the locking and unlocking costs more than what's gained.

​

And the small ones count too. How clean is clean enough?
Nobody will ask you. The scrubbing earns love.
When a Y wins applause the split second it's seen,
Then the cost isn't counted. You just must stay “clean.”

​

And the bottled water! Three hundred billion a year,
Though the tap at your elbow is as good and as clear.
What the bottle is selling is a feeling, not drink:
The payment is acceptance with no need to think.

​

The culture wants certain. It wants sure. It wants set.

And it treats a small fear as a shame and a threat.

Even prayers ask for wisdom to know this from that,

As if knowing were stocked, like a coat or a hat.

But your odds are a number. They won't stay in place.

They move as you learn, and you act on the case.

​

So of course you'll do Y to get X. That's the way.
Even cats know the bowl is where the eating will stay.
So give every "If X, then Y" a good vet,
With three questions in your pocket you never forget:
How do I know that? What reasons say so?
And how sure should I be? Name the number. Then go.

​

And if asking should shake you, if the certainty sways,
That is nothing gone wrong. That's the vetting at play.
So the doubt's not a failing, and the fear's not a flaw.
It's the sign that your vetting is working. That's all.

​

Ask it, but ask it with blame set aside:
What is it you think that your Y will provide?
And how do you know it? Did you test it before?

The question is honest. The question's a door.