High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Curiosity’

“The cure for boredom is curiosity.  There is no cure for curiosity.” ~Dorothy Parker

Here comes Curiosity again, her knapsack of What-Ifs slung over her shoulder.  She’s an insatiable one, I tell you, poking her fingers in every crack, her head through every door.

“How does it work? Why does it do that?  What would happen if?”  There’s just no stopping her, believe me.  Toss her an answer and it only makes her hungry for more.

She pounces like a cat on every scrap that catches her interest.  She has no fear and cares nothing for boundaries or mundane opinions.

She takes things to their limits and then pushes them over the edge just to see what will happen.  She experiments with everything, dares the impossible, and can drag opportunity from places that others never see.

“How will you know if you don’t try?” she asks, laughing.

I love it when she comes by.  If you’re ever bored, have her over for dinner.

It was her first day in the world and the daffodil was thrilled.  The thin wrapper that had held her as a bud split in the early morning and she felt the sun’s rays on her petals.  Hers was not a shy spirit; she unfurled her ruffled petals as quickly as she could.

“Why, this is beautiful!” she thought to herself as she felt the little drops of dew condensing on her body and the kiss of the breeze dancing by, full of the music of birdsong and the whir of tiny insect wings.

She watched, mesmerized, as the pastel colors of the dawn brightened, growing sharper and more intense with every passing moment.  The little blades of grass at her base glistened in the sunlight, and the light itself took on a wonderful warmth as the sun floated higher in the sky.

She had no preconceptions about how the world should be, no judgments.   But she was awfully curious, and wholly open to experiencing whatever the day would bring.  So of course she was happy.

She didn’t feel a need to rush things along, despite the deep impulse within to keep growing, or to have them be a certain way, and so she was free to experience them just as they were, and in doing so, she found they were just as they should be.  “How perfect!” she breathed.

Her companions danced in the breeze beside her, each one so much like her, yet unique in its own way, and having no need to prove herself better or worse, she saw that every one of them was lovely and precious.

Not everything, of course, was sunshine and birdsong.  Insects came to nibble on her petals, and she noted the feeling of pain.  A big clumsy dog ran through the garden, crushing some of the daffodils’ leaves and she noted the emotions of disappointment and loss.  But she didn’t label her feelings “bad” or hold on to them.  She just observed them and let them pass and was open to what came next, thinking it rather wondrous that she was capable of such a range of emotions.

Just when she thought she could hold no more amazement over everything that unfolded throughout the day, the sky began to glow with shades of rose and orchid, turquoise and gold.  The birds began singing soothing melodies, and when the air cooled and another layer of gentle dew moistened her petals she yawned and knew it was time to fold inward and rest.

As dreams begin to wrap themselves around her, she heard frogs singing and saw the sparkle of stars shine down from the velvet sky.  Beside her, the other daffodils were drifting off to sleep, too.  “Wasn’t it beautiful?”  they whispered.  “Isn’t life grand?”

“Yes,” she whispered back.  “It was perfect.  Life is good.”  And with a smile in her heart, she feel asleep.

Want to turn up the volume on your sense of wonder, your appreciation for life?   Brush off your curiosity and take it for a whirl.

Watch a toddler; watch a cat.  How eagerly they approach the world! Every day is fresh and new and their senses are on and alive.

They’re dazzled by shafts of sunlight, by the strand of a spider web.  They spot the dew on the morning grass and the bubbles in a puddle after a rain.

“What’s that?” they ask.  “How does it feel?  How does it smell?  What does it taste like?  What would happen if?”

Without boxes of words to fool them into thinking they already know, they’re engaged with the world and involved, first hand, their curiosity aflame to know it.  And so their world becomes a delight.

Curiosity is one of our most priceless gifts.  It whets our appetite for life and spurs us to acquire new knowledge.  It enhances our senses of wonder and delight, and grows us into larger people.

Turning on your curiosity is as easy as paying attention, as looking and listening more closely, with less judgment and more depth.  It’s the knack of tuning into your senses and wringing from them the juicy nuances of information that they bring.

Pretend it’s the first day you were able to see, or hear.  Or that it’s the last one you’ll have before the ability is gone.  What if you just got a nose and the fragrances of the world were all new?  What if your sense of touch, or pressure, or movement was just turned on for the first time?  How would water feel to your skin?  Or hair?  Or sunlight?

Curiosity is the art of allowing your mind to wander outside your preconceived notions, to ask new questions, to let in the subtleties and details you overlooked before.  It’s trying new combinations and juxtapositions.  It’s turning things over and around and seeing how they look and act from different angles.

Pretend you just arrived from some other planet.  Play with questions in your mind.  Where did that come from?  Where is it going?  How does it work?  What is it made of?  What is it for?  Why does it do that?  What if it went out instead of in?  What if it were round instead of square?  Red instead of blue?  What if it could float?

“The important thing,” said Albert Einstein, “is not to stop questioning.  Curiosity has its own reason for existing.  One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.  It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.  Never lose a holy curiosity.”