“FITZPATRICK!!!” He’d call, running up and grabbing my facemask with a giant fist of hard, burly knuckles, “you’re running around like a blind dog in a meat house, son!”

Eloquent words recalled from my days prowling the defensive backfield as a free safety on the high school football practice fields. My coach would make it a point to yell from the complete opposite side of the field, making everyone stop in their tracks to watch his 260-pound frame barrel down on me to inform me that:

A) I was out of position

and

B) I didn’t have a clue why I should have been in the right position.

“Do you know WHY you should have been filling the C gap in cover 2?! Why?! Tell me WHY you should’ve been in the C gap, Fitzpatrick!”

“Well…uhh…” I’d say, still thinking of the image of a blind dog running on a rampage through a meat house. Would it run around all crazy, eating everything it ran into? Or would its senses overload, scaring it into a dull, mindless stupor?

“Because the end’s blocking DOWN and the fullback’s picking up the linebacker!” He’d explain to me as if scolding a 4-year old for grabbing a hot frying pan.

I’d get it, eventually. But through the heat of the Chicago summer, enduring three-a-day practices and the yelling and the sweating and the bleeding across the sun-dried fields under the slowly creeping shadow of the town water tower, it was nearly impossible to avoid the question—why was I even doing it all?

And then the season would begin. Game days brought packed stadiums, crisp uniforms and hungry looks in the eyes of those who had been through it all right alongside me. I’d feel the energy building up before an opening kickoff and the highs and lows of all that comes with fierce competition. I’d actually be in the right place at the right time; another piece of the puzzle that had to fall in place to ensure the success of the team. And I’d eventually come to understand the reasoning behind the madness my coach would put us through for all those months.

Today, I even miss running around on those practice fields.

I’m not about to sign up for another stint on the gridiron, but maybe I don’t have to. Maybe the practice fields just have a different form today.

That thought occurred to me the other day when I got to thinking about why people do what they do. And, more specifically, why do I do what I do? Why work for NASA? Why explore? Why push the limits? Why try to change public opinion about space? Why bother?

Why?

It might be the most important question anyone can ask. And a close second in my book is a cousin of the first: why not?

Personally, I believe in exploration and I think the fundamental asking of the question “why” goes hand-in-hand with what exploration is in the first place. To me, we explore because we aren’t content with the way the world is and we are compelled by a desire to find out more. It isn’t good enough for us to sit back and accept that what we see is what we get. Exploration, science, innovation, personal discovery and enlightenment—they all share the same basic underlying drive and it is a drive that you might say has had some history of success in the world so far.

I would venture to guess that Mr. Columbus might have shared a similar stance in that regard. Lewis and Clark, too. The founding fathers of the American democracy. Einstein, Bohr, Magellan, Aristotle, Lindbergh, Polo, Newton, Galileo, Edison. Abraham Lincoln. Kennedy. King. (I’ll stop there only in the interest of keeping this brief).

They all saw something in the world and wanted to make it better.

Workers in any career should ask themselves the tough questions. As a nation and as a world, we should also ask ourselves the tough questions. And in the end, regardless of generation, occupation, background or motivation, maybe everyone could use a minute to take a step back, see the entire playing field in all its sometimes tortuous, incessant grind and really—and I mean really, not just in passing or jotted down as an item in a bulleted list to be lost or checked off as blueberry yogurt on a grocery list—ask him/herself the tough questions:

A) Why?

and

B) Why not?

It is the purpose of it all that gets lost in the midst of all the noise, whether that noise be in the form of large sweating teenagers in pads running at full speed with eyes like daggers pointed through your chest or the constant barrage of technology creating an entire generation formed in the highly generalized mold of short attention spans and instant gratification.

“You think its HOT?!? Boy, you ain’t seen hot yet! HOT?!? Hell is hot! This??? This is ILLINOIS! You go to hell then come back and complain to me about HOT!”

Maybe my football coach wasn’t exactly what you would call “politically correct”.

But in some way I would not have considered in a thousand years if you had asked me after getting chewed out by my football coach all those years ago that I’d be glad for it, but I am. And I’m glad for asking myself the tough questions, too.

Today, we have the opportunity and the means (and with that, the responsibility) to engage so many more people around the world to ask themselves the tough questions. And I’m not just talking about those questions about space or NASA here. So, here’s one of them (and I promise I won’t come running after you with a giant fist of hard, burly knuckles), regardless of what it is you do:

Why do you do what you do?