Three Questions To Ask

Here is a story that is attributed to Socrates about how to handle negative people giving you “news”.

One day, a man rushed up to Socrates saying, “I have some news to tell you!”

Socrates put up his hand up to the excited man.

“First, let me ask you three questions,” said Socrates.

“Ah, er, OK,” said the man.

“Is the news you are about to tell me something that you personally know to be true?”

“Well, no,” was the reply. “I heard it from a good source, though.”

“Then, lets go to the second question,” Socrates said. “Is the news you want to tell me about someone that you know personally?”

Again the reply was “well, no.” And he went on “but I think you know the person.”

“I see” said Socrates. “Then let me ask you one final question. Is this news positive or negative.”

“Well, it is negative.”

“Let me see,” said Socrates. “You want to tell me some news that you don’t know personally to be true about someone that you do not personally that is negative.”

“Well, it sounds bad when you put it like that.”

“I think that I will pass,” said Socrates.

If we ask these questions about news our friends want to share, and follow the suggestion of Socrates, we will feed our minds a lot better information.