Who wants to be a cat?
/We all know the expression “curiosity killed the cat”. The trouble with sayings like that is they can be passed off as common sense or timeless wisdom and taken out of context.
The wrong spin on this one, in particular, could be disastrous!
As a reminder not to stick our noses in where they don’t belong, this saying works a treat. However, adopt it as a mantra and you risk living life more like a cat than a human.
Nothing could be more natural to a human being than to be curious. It gets us learning, discovering, creating, loving, and it’s one of the key attitudes that gets our attention engaged.
Cats, on the other hand, tend to lie around on the couch looking smug and in control and waiting to be fed. If you’re content to live life that way (and it doesn’t sound entirely bad, I must admit) then by all means, put your curiosity aside.
But if you want to create, produce something worthwhile, learn and grow, then your curiosity should be nurtured.
Beware, though! A poorly raised sense of curiosity tends to graze on junk food. Things like gossip, drama, news that’s titillating perhaps, but out of our sphere of influence. These are like sugar hits for the mind and have no lasting nutritional value.
Try giving your curiosity more beneficial questions to feed on:
- Ask yourself why things work a certain way and wonder whether they can be improved.
- Ask who could benefit from your assistance and what are you able to contribute.
- Ask yourself how you could make things just a little bit better each day.
Above all, avoid the biggest curiosity killer of all; overuse of the phrase “I know”!
Nothing keeps you on the couch with the cat as surely as that.
