What If You Just Asked
Rain was falling again on the third morning of my four day women's golf retreat in Edgerton, Wisconsin. Our 9:34 am tee time had been pushed back, and none of us knew exactly when we'd be able to get onto the course. So we waited. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, word came that it was time to go. Get your clubs outside!
Suddenly, we were scrambling. After waiting around with nowhere to be, now we had somewhere to be immediately. I gathered my purse, keys, water bottle, clubs, and everything else I thought I'd need for the day and hurried outside. Then came the shuffle of getting our carts, figuring out who was paired with whom, deciding who was driving, and loading all of our golf gear and belongings into the carts. Finally, we were off.
After our first round, we had a few minutes before heading back out. I went to grab my room key and couldn't find it. I wasn't particularly worried because my roommate was nearby and could let me in. Besides, I distinctly remembered picking the key up from the desk before we left that morning. It had to be somewhere among all my things.
We played another round and went directly to the clubhouse for lunch, so once again I didn't need my key. After lunch, we exchanged carts and teammates, moved our belongings around, and headed back onto the course. I still couldn't locate the key, but I wasn't worried. There had been so much shuffling of bags, purses, golf gear, and carts that I was certain it would eventually turn up.
After our last round of the day, we followed our last night tradition of gathering in two of the girls' rooms for our gift exchange and nightly round of gambling games. Before heading down, I checked again for my room key and still couldn't find it. This time I mentioned it to the group, and someone told me that losing a key could cost me $100.
YIKES!
Okay, now I was worried.
When I returned to my room that night, the casual search became a mission. I went through both suitcases carefully, pulling things out, checking them, and putting everything back. I emptied my purse and rummaged through every pocket. I checked the drawers in the room and anywhere else I could think of. And my golf bag? That one really did get turned upside down and shaken. If that key was hiding somewhere inside, it wasn't going to stay hidden for long.
Still nothing.
My roommate suggested that perhaps it had fallen into the landscaping rocks outside our patio doors. That actually seemed plausible. Maybe I'd had the key in my hand or pocket and somehow dropped it while coming in or out of the room. By then it was late and dark, though, so there wasn't much we could do.
The next morning, the search party expanded. Several of the ladies joined me outside, looking through the rocks around our patios. We searched carefully, but there was no sign of that darn key.
That's when one of the gals, Marilyn, made a very simple suggestion.
Why don't you just ask the front desk if someone turned it in?
I don't know why I hadn't done that already. Maybe because I was convinced I had misplaced it somewhere close by. Maybe because I wanted to find it myself. And perhaps part of me didn't want to ask because I was afraid I'd hear the answer I didn't want to hear: Nope, no key, and now you owe us $100.
But my friend pointed out something that was so obvious I couldn't argue with it. Asking wasn't going to change the outcome. If they didn't have the key, I was in exactly the same position I was already in.
So I finally went to the front desk.
I asked the woman if anyone had turned in a room key. She seemed a little hesitant to answer and asked what room I was staying in.
"Room 34."
She admitted someone had, in fact, turned in a key for room 34.
WHAT?
I was so excited! After all that searching, they had my key. She also told me that losing it would have cost me $50, not the $100 I'd been warned about. At that point, I was simply relieved that I wouldn't be paying either amount. Although I inquired why I hadn’t been alerted.
Then I asked where it had been found.
Hole 6.
Hole 6!
While I had been going through suitcases, emptying my purse, searching pockets and drawers, shaking my golf bag upside down, and recruiting a group of women to comb through landscaping rocks, my room key had been found on hole 6. Even better, another golfer had taken the time to pick it up and turn it in.
I couldn't help but laugh. All that searching, and the answer had been waiting at the front desk. I just hadn't asked the question.
Later, I started thinking about how often we do something similar in life. We can spend an enormous amount of energy looking for an answer in all the places we think it should be. We go over the same problem again and again. We replay conversations. We second guess decisions. We try another solution and then another. Sometimes we become so focused on finding the answer ourselves that we don't consider the possibility that someone else might be able to help.
Why can asking feel so difficult?
Maybe we don't want to bother someone. Maybe we don't want to appear as though we don't know what we're doing. Sometimes we're afraid we'll hear no, so we decide not to ask at all. We convince ourselves we already know what the answer will be.
But my friend was right. Asking doesn't necessarily change the outcome. It simply gives us information we didn't have before.
Had the front desk said no one had turned in my key, I still would have had a missing key. Asking wouldn't have made the situation any worse. But because I finally asked, I discovered that the problem I was working so hard to solve had already been solved by someone else.
I love that part of the story too. I don't know who found my key on hole 6. That golfer could have walked right past it. Instead, someone stopped, picked it up, recognized that another person would probably be looking for it, and turned it in. While I was busy searching high and low, someone I didn't even know had already helped me.
Maybe there are times when we need to stop searching harder and simply widen the possibilities. Ask the question. Ask for help. Make the phone call. Inquire about the opportunity. Speak up about what you need. The answer might still be no, but then again, it might be waiting for you in a place you never thought to look.
I left that golf retreat with my room key safely in hand and a story that still makes me laugh. I'm pretty sure the next time I lose something I'll still check my purse, my pockets, and probably turn a few things upside down. But I hope I'll also remember the lesson waiting for me back at that front desk. Sometimes we can exhaust ourselves trying to figure everything out on our own when the simplest thing we can do is take a chance and wonder, what if you just asked?
xo, Sheryl
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