Every time I sit on the floor, ready to wrap presents, create a craft project, or unpack a parcel, my three cats magically appear. They want to investigate every part of whatever I am doing and aren’t shy about sticking their cute little noses right in the middle of it. It’s completely true: cats are curious. Anyone who’s had the pleasure of spending any amount of time around a feline knows this fact.
I think curiosity is a great attribute; after all, how can we learn anything new or stretch ourselves without first feeling curious? It is, however, not enough to simply feel curious; we must also act on that curiosity. A cat doesn’t typically sit back and watch someone unpack a box. No way! They jump right in (literally and figuratively) and check out the situation. How big is the box? What’s inside? What does it smell like? Will my human leave it in the middle of the living room floor for me? As humans, we must follow the feline example. Certainly we’ve all felt curious about something…a new career, a class, a recipe, a potential relationship. What a feeling of accomplishment to follow those curious feelings and find joy or learn something new about ourselves.
Thanks to the internet, some of our curiosity can now be quickly and easily satisfied. And now that many of us have a phone with online access, we can investigate information anywhere and anytime. What kind of bird is that? Let me look it up! What kind of music does that band play? Let me check! When I was young, I’d sit for hours with the World Book Encyclopedia, browsing the pages, completely engrossed with facts about faraway countries and mesmerized by the cool, multi-layer, transparent pages of the human body systems. I’d ask my mother how to spell a word and she’d say, “Look it up in the dictionary!” I learned how to spell a word and nearly always found myself perusing the pages, discovering other new and interesting words. These days, the web offers us all of that and more, although I admit to still loving to browse the dictionary. Curious about something? Wonder no longer…look it up!
I feel certain the spark of curiosity is a silent nudge. It tells us to move forward and investigate something to see where it leads. A sudden thought about an old friend might prompt a phone call to her, which may result in a connection to that new job we were seeking. A beautiful magazine photo of a rocky coast could turn into research about the Pacific Northwest, which may lead to an unexpected trip where we fall in love with Oregon…and maybe decide to move there! We never know, but I strongly believe in following those silent nudges.
Once again, let’s allow our feline friends to be our guides. Explore something new and different, check out an unexplored corner of your world, toss something in the air and see where it lands, dip your paws into the unknown…and enjoy the discovery!
