It's good to be more than a little curious

Last night, I was reading a piece in the Globe and Mail, about Laylah Fernandez. She’s the nineteen-year-old Canadian who advanced to the U.S. Open tennis final. (By the time this is published, she will either be a grand slam champion, or runner-up.)

The paper quoted her dad and coach as saying, “The art of being a great coach is understanding that you know nothing. And when you know nothing, all you do is get hungry to find out.”

This caught my attention and started me thinking about curiosity.

What comes to mind when you think about this word? I’m willing to bet that the saying “Curiosity killed the cat” entered the heads of many of you. That’s where my mind went.

Although that was the saying I thought of first, it’s about the only one I could find that frowns upon curiosity. There are many quotes that encourage us to question.

I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

Ken Robinson

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

Albert Einstein

Dr. Jean Piaget defined curiosity as an urge to explain the unexpected. It’s one of the precepts for wellbeing that I share in my book Modelling Happiness.

Humans are natural learners. If you allow your inquisitive nature to roam freely, you’ll boost your sense of happiness.

It has other benefits as well. Curiosity encourages creativity and makes it easier to adapt to new situations. It fosters the discovery of novel solutions. It reduces conflict and encourages communication.

Research also shows that curious people are less likely to fall into a confirmation bias. This is the tendency to notice information that supports your already held opinions and overlooks things that don’t. If you find yourself becoming judgmental as you go on your quest for knowledge, you may be falling prey to this bias.

I wonder if our pandemic experience would change if we assumed we knew nothing and instead decided to get curious. Of course, that would involve letting go of our currently held beliefs, assumptions, and judgements.

It’s not about whether other people agree with you. It’s about gaining a clearer understanding of multiple perspectives, and maybe uncovering something totally new in the process.

This is the strangest time I’ve ever lived through. When there was talk about a second wave of Covid-19 last fall, I didn’t for one second consider a year later we’d be experiencing a fourth wave. Now I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about an eighth one.

Rather than getting caught up in politics and negativity, try fostering an open mind and get curious about yourself, your life, and your world. In the words of Debasish Mridha, “Curiosity is the origin of knowledge. Experience is the origin of wisdom.”

Let’s replace fear of the unknown with curiosity. It’s a perfect time in history to become both wiser and better informed.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.