“Seeking what is true is not
seeking what is desirable.”
Albert Camus
The Little Girl Who Asks Why Is The Sky Blue?
“The little girl who asks “why is the sky blue?”
becomes the woman who can change the world.”
Sheryl Sandberg
Discover Curiosity New Each Day
“The first and the simplest emotion
which we discover in the human mind,
is Curiosity.”
Edmund Burke
Curiosity Fuels A Vigorous Intellect
“Curiosity is one of the permanent
and certain characteristics
of a vigorous intellect”
Samuel Johnson
A vigorous intellect, now there’s something to think about. My first impression upon seeing the above quote was one of movement, one of gears meshing and cranking the workings within my mind. Cranking forward, with a drive to know something beyond standing up from the chair I was sitting in. Cranking forward, an unencumbered awareness embracing the blossoming of everything before me.
It will come as no surprise that I harbor a huge bias when it comes to the curiosity. For me curiosity is the most crucial building block we possess and also one of the most neglected building blocks we possess.
We can’t take it for granted that people who are or appear smart are also curious. Often as the years roll by many of us become less curious, to me it would make sense that we’d become more curious. But curiosity often means taking risks and extending your mind into questions and places its rarely if ever been. Does that sound attractive? No, and that’s where many of us leave the idea of becoming more curious before we even step off the pier.
Leaving curiosity bound, gagged and deeply hidden in the nether regions of our mind is sad, it’s also really bad for relationships and for business. How can we think we have a vigorous intellect that’s working at it’s peak if we are afraid to challenge our own tightly held beliefs. Let in some fresh air.
I’m added a short video below that wonders about The Power of Outsiders… In any organization the thinking of outsiders often see solutions that insiders miss. But bringing in outsiders is not the only solution to change your culture of thinking. You can infuse your team with new curios thinking using new ways of thinking such as Dialogue.
An Engine Of Achievement Always Arising
“Curiosity
is the
engine of
achievement.”
Ken Robinson
I often mention how opportunity arises many many times within each moment, how it never ceases to unfold into availability for us to embrace. But often we miss the myriad of opportunities because we cast aside Curiosity in our rush to crave or reject what’s happening in front of our eyes. Current reality is the first causality of ignoring curiosity.
Curiosity truly is the engine of achievement chugging along atop the tracks of our very short lives, at times pleading with us to search deeper into the questions arising within our minds and arising within opportunity itself.
Curiosity is nothing to shun or schedule for another day. No, curiosity is the beginning of every journey of discovery we embark on and every journey we avoid. Curiosity fuels the engine of achievement like water fuels our bodies and minds enabling us to embrace the journey.
Curiosity Ignites The Quest For The Elusive Answer
Curiosity ignites the quest.
I often find myself wondering if people I meet wonder to themselves when they look out into the night sky, or maybe gaze upon the peak of a distant mountain. Do these things start their engine of curiosity to rumbling. I’m not questioning whether people think about the decisions they make everyday, no I’m talking about wondering about how someone created a work of art or how a rocket sailed into the furthest reaches of our technology.
My curiosity burst upon the scene a couple of days ago when I started my car to go run some errands. I turned the key and listened as the engine came alive. A few seconds after it started I heard the secondary air pump start spinning (it sounds like a blender) and I immediately jumped out of my car and lifted its hood.
I should share that for a few days my check engine light was shinning steadily and giving me emissions fault codes, in other words it was telling me my car was polluting things too much…
So, now I was looking at the engine ( I had 30 seconds before the pump turned itself off) wondering what could be wrong when I yanked off a hose and put it back on then I repeated myself. Could it be that the vacuum to the value was not working I wondered (it was). But I did get to notice some noise and vibration in the valve I hadn’t noticed before.
What does this long and probably boring (To You) story have to do with curiosity? I had a problem so I did some research about it and secondly I sat and wondered about what I had learned and got my hands dirty. (I’m not a mechanic, nor do I play one on TV) What I learned is if I slow down and think and ponder I can usually get a decent understanding of most things.
Over many decades of taking things apart and never being embarrassed to ask questions, I’ve come to the understanding that curiosity can lead pretty much everyone to a richer and deeper life of understanding. And the second thing I’ve learned is that most of what we think we know is just not true, most of what we know we heard from someone else but have no direct experience of it ourselves.
My car is a great example of my not having direct experience until I opened the hood and got my hands dirty. The research I’d done did not make it part of reality, my pulling off the hoses made it part of reality not some thought sitting in my head. Curiosity ignites the quest that spurred me on to find the answer.
Did getting my hands dirty fix the car? Well I can’t be sure but the next day when I started the car the check engine light was off and it passed emissions inspection. Curiosity ignites the quest there can be no doubt and curiosity also makes serendipity smile.
These are a couple of good ways to keep your curiosity muscle nimble and at the ready Each day unplug yourself from all your devices and either just sit quietly while looking around the room (not thinking) just observe. And second is to ask lots of questions even if you will never use the answers, just ask questions. Curiosity ignites the quest for the elusive answer.
