Did curiosity really kill the cat?

That is a great question that stirs the imagination. Probably not, but by disagreeing, you open a huge range of alternative options!

I looked up curiosity quotes this week and found a whole lot of positive ones saying how wonderful curiosity is. The trouble was I didn’t know any of them.

At my core, I am impacted by curiosity causing the cat’s death more than I like to think. The danger of curiosity has become engrained in our culture and possibly our psyche. We shun the curious and push them aside. We consider curiosity as irresponsible and an indulgence that must be stopped.

One day I was seeing a wonderful Feldenkrais practitioner about my back. I told her how I should be sitting straighter and gave her a whole list of failed expectations. To my surprise she asked me if I was willing to get curious about what my back COULD do, curious about what might work for me. Well, I was taken aback. The thought of being curious about movement was completely new to me.

As adults we have largely forgotten the art of being curious. Curiosity is a skill that needs practice to keep alive. Children can be curious so long as they listen when we say no. If they don’t, we label them as some kind of animal – a kid, a cheeky monkey perhaps.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a kid goat, but from my experience, half chewed socks pulled off the clothesline with grass stains and holes in them immediately spring to mind. Not the best advertisement for curiosity. But kid goats are such fun to watch, they climb obstacles and perch in the strangest of places.

Curiosity can be annoying if you’re not the one being curious.

If we aren’t being curious, we’ve come to a conclusion and we don’t want that conclusion challenged (That is fuel for an offense right there!). We’ve made a judgement.

The different between a righteous judge and a corrupt judge is that a righteous one will look at all angles and take all the evidence into consideration before making a decision. A corrupt judge will ignore some of the evidence for personal gain. Gulp. How often do we leap to a decision without all the information in front of us?

When we’re offended, we find ourselves a position and dig ourselves in ready to defend that position. We are in this for the long haul. We will bring out all of our defensive strategies to save ourselves from further hurt.

Curiosity helps us deal with offense because it makes us more patient, we gain a greater perspective about the issue, it becomes okay to make mistakes, to observe ourselves without judgement and explore different solutions.

What? Patience? Actually yes. I love the name of this study ‘Spoiler Alert! Curiosity encourages patience and joy in the presence of uncertainty’. If we’re curious about something, we allow suspense to last much longer than when we would otherwise. We don’t seek to immediately eliminate suspense if our brain is enjoying the process.

When you’re in the trenches, it feels dangerous to lift your head over the ridge. Fear is a real obstacle. To explore feels like it invites enemy fire.  But how much do you want to see a new insight? The advantage of looking out is that you can re-orientate yourself and once you’ve gained perspective, that new information can help you move forward.

We allow children to make mistakes when they are learning. When we’re being curious, we are learning. Perhaps we can extend ourselves the same grace that we do to children. It’s okay to make a mistake on this journey. Notice your self talk when that happens.

When I was younger, I was so critical of myself, it would have been embarrassing to speak my thoughts out loud. Now I tend to say things like, ‘it’s going to be okay’, or ‘you’re making progress’; corny perhaps, but much nicer to live with.

When we judge ourselves or tell ourselves off, we shut ourselves down. It takes practice to reserve judgement and allow our curiosity to continue.

Next time that you feel anger, see if you can let the anger wave wash right on past without splashing you and redirect your anger to curiosity. Not just a ‘What did you do that for?!?’ But, ‘What was going on for you that you acted that way?’ A new understanding might catapult you to a new outcome in record time.

David Robson shares how when we’re curious, we not only prime our brain for learning, but we release dopamine and we are much more creative with our solutions. The more curious and interested we allow ourselves to be; the more engaged we will be in finding a way through that place we’re stuck and out the other side.

Curiosity helps us deal with offense because it makes us more patient, we gain a greater perspective about the issue, it becomes okay to make mistakes, to observe ourselves without judgement and explore different solutions.

Let’s dig ourselves out of our position, exchange our defensive strategies for curiosity and gather a fuller picture so that our judgements are more balanced.

Let’s extend grace for those who are naturally more curious than us and look for the positive things they do, not just for the things that frustrate us.

Let’s practice being curious without labelling ourselves or someone else. Can we explore in an area that we had failed and see what positive things we find?

Now, back to curiosity killing the cat. Perhaps the cat needed to be a bit more aware of what was going on around it. And so it is with us.