Curiosity: A tool for growth
Curiosity was a trait that nurtured us as children and taught us a lot. Looking at the trait a bit and seeing how we can use it to grow.
Humans have one life, and cats have nine. Curiosity kills the cat. That's fine cause it has nine lives, we have just one and we treasure it. Yet we started with that trait of curiosity. Babies are immensely curious and interested in everything that goes on around them.
Curiosity is the desire to learn. It is that eagerness to explore and figure things out. It is what made us crawl, and walk as babies, even when we fall. But somewhere along the line, that curiosity dropped. Ambitions grew, and we climbed the ladder of education and learning. But that eagerness to just discover and explore dropped.
Rekindling the fire
Life is an ever-learning journey. We learn from mistakes, role models and circumstances. It's all about survivability and getting out of your comfort zone. That's what's been keeping us alive for over 10,000 years. To adequately grow, we need to adopt the curiosity of babies. In their first year, a child learns a lot of skills just by the act of observing and trying.
And it comes down to those two, observation and practice. Software Engineers are advised to practice, build projects and learn from our mistakes. But we are hardly told to just observe, pair programming helps fill that gap but how many do pair programming?
Building the habit of observing is a long-term commitment, including writing more, paying more attention to not just details but also context and a lot more. We want to have that trait of children and grow our universe with the simple act of observing and trying harder.
Curiosity gave us the kick required to start in life but we drop it as soon as we assume we can stand on our two feet. Social influences also kill curiosity as we build this rigid framework for everyone to go through (a common one is school > college > uni > work) which doesn't leave space for outside-the-box thinking or learning.
Curiosity is a trait rarely embraced by people at large and it's high time we start to open our ears to our curious minds. Learn something not because you want to work but because you are curious as to how, why, or who. Life-changing discoveries and inventions weren't born from following the rules of the day but by going out, observing and a lot of what-ifs.
That's it for this article. Stoked to write more programming stuff in the coming days, I've been learning a lot and can't wait to share them. Remember to take a break once in a while, you come first, before work or money or anything. Work hard, play harder and learn smart. See you next time 👋!