#7 The three-letter word.
3 June 2025
Entry #7
3 June 2025
Location: Home, dreaming of walking towards Arafah.
“Any questions?” the speaker asks on stage, as the microphone got passed around the hall.
“Can you ask this for me?” my sister nudges me at a conference, showing me her question.
“No, you ask,” I nudge her back.
“You ask la,” she nudges me back.
We were like little school girls whispering at the back, both not wanting to make noise or else we’ll get scolded by the teacher. Except we were both full-fledged adults this time, and we knew we had every right to ask questions, but we didn’t want to. In the end, they opened the QR thingy so people could ask questions anonymously – I don’t like that thing, it cuts off two-way human interactions and enables hiding behind keyboards.
So my sister types furiously to ask her question – which never got answered because there were so many others in the queue.
“See, if you had raised up your hand…” I start lecturing her.
That light moment sat with me.
I thought about other instances in my life that I’ve done this too.
Why do we hesitate to speak up to ask for things we want? When we know we can and we should.
“Ask for what you want,” your heart would urge you.
“No, shhhh, let’s not disturb the peace,” your brain would answer.
And even if we did ask, it will always be a discounted/malu ask e.g. “I would like to be paid RM1,000 for this… but umm, it’s negotiable,” as if we feel guilty to even be asking. Of if we want to ask questions, we’ll apologise first, “Sorry, I have a question…”
WHY ARE WE SORRY?