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Why Does a Chicken, I Don’t Know Why

A line from a Pooh song, and what changed when I stopped needing to know why.
Nay Win Myint

by Nay Win Myint

Why Does a Chicken, I Don’t Know Why

During my illness, I read slowly and intentionally, to calm my mind. One of the books that helped me sleep well in that time was The Tao of Pooh. In it, Pooh sings a small song, and one line kept catching me:

Why does a chicken, I don’t know why.

— A. A. Milne, quoted in The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

We don’t know. Every answer ends in one of two ways: more questions, or science calling it instinct, because we don’t really know.

When I heard that line, I saw myself. I am always asking why does a chicken. In someone’s house, I knock on the wall to find out what it is made of, like most men do. In the hospital, in the darkest part of the valley, I asked why this happened to me, why now. When the morning was good and the afternoon was worse, I asked why this afternoon. There are infinite questions, and only a limited life.

On the road, when a car makes a wrong move, my first thought is, why would he do that? Now I let my mind stay open. His why is his why, and it is not my job to analyze it. I won’t have enough time to figure out even my own whys. It is the same at home, in marriage and with family. People see differently. Even I am a little different from yesterday, and I may disagree with what I agreed to then.

This is not about positive thinking. It is about noticing when I want to judge a person or a situation and jump to a conclusion.

In business, we still need logical answers. But I found that the two are sides of the same coin. To think something through, I first have to accept that I don’t know.

I recently finished performance appraisals with my managers. In earlier rounds, I came in already knowing. I would tell myself, or my wife, “I know they will do that.” When it happened, my mind hurt twice. This time I went in with “I don’t know why.” I listened to what they said and decided from there, with no past and no future, just here. My mind was calm.

I am still practicing this. When I notice the urge to judge, I try to answer the way Pooh does. Why does a chicken? I don’t know why.

Here is the song –

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