There’s a lot to be said for curiosity, and we often forget that it’s not just about enquiry, or being nosy; its about showing genuine interest.

I was reading something on another blog about how, when asked how we are, we often respond with a bland statement like “not bad”, rather than saying something more upbeat and creative. The idea in the post I was reading (see below), is that we conceal our true feelings and distance ourselves from life when we reply with a standard formula rather than a considered response.

It got me thinking about how we might overcome the tendency of acceptance and apathy, for it is true that many people adopt a kind of passivity about their life which acts as a security blanket.

Maybe a lot of this – mindlessly accepting our dissatisfaction by concealing it from ourself and others with a phrase like ‘not bad’ – is because we are not told that things can be different, that we can create the life we want. If we learn it at all most of us have to discover this as we go through life, often this is only when adversity hits us.

I have been lucky; I learned when I was a young adult that we do have control over what happens to us and how our lives pan out. My mission in life for the past 25 years has been to show dissatisfied others at “life doesn’t have to be like that.”

Develop your curiosity

A good starting point is to develop a keen sense of curiosity about life, about everything, because this helps to keep our senses active and alert.

But that curiosity must be the right kind of curiosity. Simply asking “Why” all the time is not what I mean (that has the opposite effect because it can tie us up in knots).
The key is to remain curious in the way that we observe what’s going on within us and around us.

The Zen people talk about developing a ‘childlike curiosity’. Many great thinkers have talked about this too. This doesn’t mean acting in a childish way, it means developing the maturity of understanding that the more we reflectively observe, the truer our understanding of ourselves will become. This of course requires courage and commitment, and not everyone is up for that. So the security blanket gets used instead.