Curiosity

Someone, something, somewhere knows all there is to know.

But that’s not me.

In fact, I don’t even know what I don’t know. The good news is that is the first step to knowledge. Awareness.

I can accept there are things I don’t know.

What I’m very afraid of is I something that I know for sure, that is dead wrong.

I’ve had this lesson presented to me over and over again in the past, where I was 100% sure I was right, but in fact I was wrong. This failure has been the best way to convince me to be humble.

It’s as Mark Twain said, “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you, it’s what you know for sure, that just isn’t so.”

If you’re still reading, there’s hope for you. You too realize you can be wrong.

So how do we cope with that?

The first thing we do is learn. How does that thing you’re investigating work? What makes that fact true? How do I apply what I learned in this area, into this other area? Have I seen this thing before, and is it just ‘another one of those things’?

You know that little voice inside of you that wonders, what if? The voice that says, hey, why not? That little voice is the curious one of you, and the more you encourage it, the more fulfilled you will be.

That’s a little spark, a flame, a moment of desired learning that happens all the time. Take advantage of it. Embrace it. Explore it. I hope for you the results are not what you expected or forecast, but something new and exiting.

That curiosity, once satisfied, has the ability to plant a seed for the next moment of curiosity, and the next, and the next. It is what will keep you moving forward, into the unknown.

And the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.

How fun is that?