Curiosity: Our Antidote Through Uncertainty
Are you curious?
Is this a descriptor you would apply to yourself?
Is it a characteristic you value?
I’m genuinely curious about the state of curiosity in our culture.
Broadly: How often do we value and practice questioning what is purported by media or “experts” to be truth?
Individually: Do we readily engage our personal curiosity to explore how we might amplify passions/talents/choices that feel most meaningful to us? Or do we more frequently follow without much inquiry or investigation choices that others follow, that feel more widely accepted?
What price are we paying by not honoring our curiosity’s crucial questions?
As a newspaper reporter, I was trained to be curious and to inquire:
to have 3 sources for every fact
to ask questions of the story’s periphery as we might otherwise miss an important facet that shifts the main narrative
to unearth who might have motive to steer a story in one direction and away from another
to listen to my intuition but to always see through a lens of critical investigative inquiry
Is curiosity a proverbial muscle that, if not exercised, atrophies?
In my experience, curiosity is a practice, a value, that if we are not in the habit of engaging, we deprogram ourselves from inquiring/discovering and instead subjugate ourselves to the intellectual “authority” of those who may not have earned it. Our life is a bespoke custom-tailored experience, not a one-size fits all.
Does curiosity present challenges?
Absolutely. It may disrupt our comfort zone (and others’) and it may lead us to upturning our belief system and patterns in certain areas. We like “safe” and with good reason. It is primally wired in to keep us alive. But no matter how much we resist uncertainty, it is our universal constant. Curiosity OPENS possibilities we may not otherwise be exposed to if we hadn’t gone looking for full or deeper understanding, alternate solutions, different perspectives.
An ardent detective story fan, I admire the savvy sleuth’s instinct to trust not what we are told but to seek to prove or disprove it by additional avenues. QUESTION EVERYTHING. Whether or not skepticism plays into our curiosity, it leads us to learn, expand, discover. Yes, that takes energy, but the sizzling zestiness of AHA moments become fuel for the next questions.
CURIOSITY BRINGS EXTENSIVE BENEFITS:
Expansion to new possibilities, seemingly unrelated connections possibly leading to eureka innovations
Happiness—curiosity correlates in research with higher levels of positive emotion, less anxiety, more life satisfaction
Fear-overcomer—curiosity propels us through potential stopping points caused by fear and uncertainty
Awe—that wordless feeling of connection to immenseness and mystery that we would never experience if we didn’t venture beyond our familiar environments
Discovery—curiosity is an openness to truly understand new and differing perspectives and information. It is a dialogue of discovery
Survival—exploration yields novel solutions in our ever-changing lives
Truth sleuthing—choosing to inquire and evaluate instead of accepting the mass perspective and joining a lemming rush that may not be fueled by truth
Aging with vitality and nimble mind—when curiosity is ignited, our limbic reward system in our brain lights up, increasing our ability to learn and retain new information. Curiosity improves our memory
Motivation—when we are curious about a topic, we are motivated to learn more, igniting our forward momentum
Anti-aging—ongoing learning and discovery keeps our minds and hearts growing and expanding, not disintegrating as they do in the stasis of an idle gear
Achievement booster—when we are curious we are more involved, engaged and our performance is generally heightened
Valuable creative commodity—curiosity leads meaningful inquiry focusing on how can we make this better or what other purpose might this serve?
Limitless life experiences—when we befriend inquiry, the world is never the same. It becomes our partner in making new connections, transforming perspectives, opening to differences and novelty
CELEBRATING CURIOSITY
Curiosity, for me, peels away layers that veil illumination. It is our tool for ejecting from auto-pilot and truing up to navigate our life choices by our own informed true north.
Curiosity is my way through uncertainty. It opens me to deeper, fuller understandings, a richer perspective, a truer dialogue. When we are aware of but a portion of the truth, we cannot make decisions for ourselves that fully serve us. Limiting information and steering people’s perspectives through fear is a tried-and-true tactic historically. If something doesn’t feel right, LISTEN. That is our innate guidance sending us a message to question. Curiosity opens us to the fullness of information that empowers us to make the best decisions for ourselves.
That value, that ability, that openness to inquire, to discover, is our maverick muscle empowering and energizing our journeys with limitless possibility.
What are you curious about today?
Want to explore where your curiosity may be inviting you?
Playfully explore by creating a curiosity photo journal:
Use your phone camera to snap an image a day of a moment/experience/something that caught your eye as inspiring curiosity.
To get the juiciest sense of the lens your curiosity adds to your experiences, take 33 days of curiosity images… collect them in a folder and review the full series as you progress through your experiment.
Find yourself enjoying the frisson of freshness? You’ll begin to see patterns in what does catch your eye and like every self-respecting sleuth, you’ll want to know more. I encourage you to KEEP GOING if you feel some new vibes stirring. Science confirms we need 8 weeks to wire a new pattern in our brain.
ENJOY DISCOVERING!
Interested in amplifying your creativity and building your Maverick Muscle? Join me for SEEING FRESHLY—a virtual workshop for individuals and groups.