From my own personal experience, it can be extremely challenging to ask questions to others that you don’t necessarily want to ask, although you feel it's necessary to. It can be difficult because that question might hurt someone, even if you’re just asking because something doesn’t make sense or because you just want clarity in the situation. My navigation skills have taught me to always be honest, because honestly within your questions is key, and although it might be difficult, the least you can do is provide clarity while being honest in the message you are trying to pursue or understand. Honesty is the key to making good decisions in challenging situations. You must ask your question with honesty and integrity to break the barrier that makes asking these questions challenging and complicated. 

In many scenarios, your own personal thoughts may contradict what you are being taught, but this is why there’s an art behind asking questions.  Asking questions can activate your critical thinking skills. If a teacher is trying to get across “point A” but you are stuck on “point B”, it is key to ask questions to understand the meaning of the lesson so your personal thoughts don’t interfere with the lesson you are being taught. This all goes back to the idea of each individual’s learning process. On a personal note, I always ask questions to help me understand the lesson being conveyed. When I switched to schools, there were plenty of things that were different, such as the writing structure that my teachers had wanted. Asking questions is what navigated me to pick up the concepts in my teacher’s lessons while setting aside my personal thoughts from previous experiences. This is asking questions is key to developing critical thinking skills and furthering your own knowledge. Questions help you think for yourself while patching up the difference between your own thoughts and the message trying to be conveyed. 

Questions can be asked to others but you can also question yourself to give you a greater understanding of how to think for yourself. You can learn more about yourself by questioning, and it can even make you more grateful, as it can give you a greater understanding of your life and how you learn and prosper in other environments. Thinking for yourself can be challenging because your own thoughts are much different than what may be taught in a classroom. Questioning yourself and others can help you develop individuality within your thinking process, and how you differ from others. Thus, honesty is key when asking questions to others to break barriers that make questioning a challenge in order to benefit your own thinking process and how you develop ideas on a personal level.