My curiosity

I just listened to a great episode of Jay Shetty's podcast -- On Purpose -- called The 1 Habit All Highly Effective People Live By & How to Implement it in Your Life. It's all about cultivating your own curiosity as a way to find creativity and success in our life. If you've never listened to his podcast, it's worth every second just to experience his flair for uplifting and motivating people. 

In the podcast he provides five reasons to cultivate curiosity and then four things to do in your life to put this into practice. There's so much I could talk about, but the biggest takeaway for me is the idea that being curious helps us to stay open-minded and helps us get past our biases, or our belief that we already know what's going on. 

This is precisely why I am trying so hard to approach my learning about whiteness and privilege with an open mind and heart. I am realizing how much there is to learn. There's a depth and breadth to this learning that goes beyond the surface understanding that many of us are getting from following current events or reading the odd book or article or Instagram post. My goal is to dig deeper, and it starts with me. 

Jay Shetty says: "Open your mind to what is present right now and allow yourself to notice new things." A great example of this is my experience as I have learned a little more about police brutality and systemic racism within law enforcement. Based on my own life experiences, I have certain ideas about policing that made it very uncomfortable for me to process my thoughts about what has been going on in the world in relation to the policing community -- protests, calls for defunding, demands for reform, etc. 

What I have learned about myself is that I have let that discomfort prompt me to turn away from issues rather than letting that discomfort be a sign that I need to get curious about why I feel what I'm feeling. I'm noticing it now, and those uncomfortable feelings are a gift because they let me know where I need to go in search of guidance for learning new things. I'm curious about this now. This is why I'm here.   


   

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