"Why? Why not?"

There is an oft told story of a group of college students who walk in to the lecture hall to take their "Introduction to Philosophy" final examination.  The philosophy professor writes up one word, and one word only on the chalkboard - "Why?"  The professor then sits down and tells the students, "You may begin."  In the story, one of the college students sitting in the front row writes down in her essay booklet two words, and two words only - "Why not?"  The students happily finds out that she received an "A+" on her examination.  I first heard this story when I was a college student, almost 35 years ago (did the "chalkboard" give that away?!?!).  The story has become urban legend - look it up on the Internet! 

As it turns out, the story is actually based on factual events.  The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, "You see things; and you say 'Why?'  But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'"  Sound familiar?  The quotation comes from Shaw's play, "Back to Methusaleh" , a play that spans from the time of Adam and Eve to 31,000 AD (fittingly enough, the play apparently took three nights to perform in its entirety).  It is something of an oddball play, but it is a great quote.  In fact, the quote was later paraphrased by someone much more famous - Robert F. Kennedy, who said, "Some people see things as they are and say why?  I dream things that never were and say, why not?"  Kennedy apparently used the quote in so many different speeches that the quote is now more commonly believed to have been first said by him (even though he always gave credit to Shaw).  Just to finish out the story, the comedian George Carlin paraphrased both Shaw and Kennedy when he quipped, "Some people see things that are and ask, Why?  Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not?  Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that shit."

So what is the point of the quote?  What does an urban legend about a college philosophy final exam, an Irish playwright, a former U.S. Attorney General and Presidential candidate, and a stand-up comedian all have in common here?  In my mind, the lesson for us here today is that we should never be satisfied with just the simple answer.  Rather than accepting life as it is today, we should dare to dream about the endless possibilities of tomorrow.  As Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize said in a beautiful quote (my compliments to the Disney movie Queen of Katwe where I first heard the quote), "The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them.  If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough."

In other words, "Why not?"