Questioning ourselves, about who we are and about everything that surrounds us is much more common and useful than we might suppose.

It is an exercise, the act of questioning ourselves, that begins at a very early age, almost in an instinctive and unconscious way; but one of which, as we grow and develop, we begin to become aware and to deepen our questioning.

However, being something almost universal, not all of us manage to carry it out with the depth and complexity of reasoning, or analysis, with which we should do so.

Sometimes we need something, in addition to someone, that helps us generate a genuine and intimate interest in questioning everything. Not to tear down anything in particular, but to contribute to understanding, and building, everything better.

It is something that some of us may like and, I would also say, may come to be passionate about.

In my case, what led me to continue questioning everything, in a critical, rational and thoughtful way, is reading.

One book in particular, read at a very early age, captivated me and helped me to ask, and ask myself, many questions, that otherwise perhaps I would never have done, as well as to seek and find, in many cases, answers.

I returned to it more than once, and if you have not yet read it, -although written for young students and regardless of your age- I recommend its reading: it is at the same time youthful, entertaining, intelligent and deep without becoming dense, and its title is: The World of Sofia, by Jostein Gaarder.

It is, above all, an invitation to continue questioning ourselves, maintaining the capacity for wonder, in order to find answers. Tools that are very useful in professional practice, even more so if you are a lawyer.

Thus, a book that aims to bring us closer to the world of wisdom and philosophy -The World of Sofia- through an ingenious plot and a journey through the most outstanding philosophical minds in history, was the small spark that illuminated, in my case, a path even broader than the one imagined, by the writer, for his readers.

It can be said that the book begins with a question that we have all, at some point, asked ourselves: who are you?

Its reading invited me to inquire into and deepen the complexities of a world that, inevitably, surrounds us all, that of Justice.

This exploration ended up leading me to answer, if not totally, partially, the question of: who am I? Since, after that search, I came to be a lawyer.

As such, occasionally, I must navigate between “alternate” realities, with diverse and often distorted “centers of gravity”, where maintaining the capacity for wonder and questioning oneself, in a critical, rational and thoughtful way, can become a path that is difficult to travel, with many bifurcations and demanding a lot of energy, if not boldness, to find the answers you require.

You must make a great effort if you want to be prepared and trained to listen, know and evaluate a situation with the objective of arguing and negotiating a possible conflict in a resolutive manner.

Sometimes, in addition to the effort represented by many years of study, specialization and continuous professional practice, it is the conscious and systematic exercise of questioning: strategies, approaches, positions and everything that surrounds a case, the one that results in the path that allows us to find the answers we need.

It is this questioning, critical, rational and thoughtful, that allows us to glimpse a possibility, which sometimes transcends what is imagined and can become a reality. Other times it is the opposite, as happens to Sofia and Albert -two of the protagonists in the book-, questions that through the answers we find dissolve a reality, transmuting it into an ethereal situation: an imaginary spirit that tries to interfere in reality.

On occasions, the spirit that you can find, by questioning yourself, could come to be much more than reality, although in appearance it does not exist nor endure.

If you have not read this book, do so, and if you have already read it, then take another look. Sometimes, in addition to entertaining, it awakens the concern to maintain wonder, to question everything and to be able to better understand our reality in order to improve it.