Why We Need Curiosity Now More Than Ever

Two years into the pandemic and many experts say it's just revving up. That's exhausting news, to put it mildly. Parents wonder if schools will be closing - yet again. Workers wonder if they'll be working from home for the entirety of yet another year. Many of us wonder whether we'll feel totally safe traveling and visiting older relatives any time in the near future.

Those questions are, I suppose, all forms of curiosity. They're "wonder" - but in the most tiresome way.

I, for one, am sick of this particular type of wondering. I'd love to know that in 2022 my two children will consistently be where they most effectively grow and are stimulated (i.e., school!), that I can reliably plan on having meetings without family members screaming outside my door, and that my 70-something parents can safely span the 370 miles between us whenever they darn well choose.

But who knows.

That not knowing might make us want to give up on being curious. We're done with the unknowns. We're done with the questions.

People who reach out to me for coaching are really done with questions. They want answers. Now more than ever. Give me some taste of certainty in the midst of chaos, they practically plead - even if they don't say exactly those words on the intake form. What they actually say is that they want to know if Path X or Path Y or Path Z is best for them. They want to know how to be more effective at work and earn that promotion sooner. They want to know what exactly will make them feel most fulfilled and impactful.

But really they're saying: Give me something to count on. Give me one known that feels good.

And what do I give them in return? More questions.

Why do you want that promotion? Why is your current work feeling unfulfilling? Why is Path X intriguing to you? What data do you need to gain in the real world to help you make your decision? What do you know of yourself that you absolutely want to honor in your future work? What do you not yet know that you need to know?

And those questions? That's exactly the point. That's precisely what we need most.

When people stop asking questions, I get worried.

Because as exhausted as we feel about pandemic wondering - for good reason - curiosity is the only way we move forward. The only way.

We need curiosity now more than ever.

"Curiosity is an antidote to despair," writes Rob Bell in Everything is Spiritual, a semi-memoir of leaning into wonder, awe and meaning. "Despair is the spiritual disease of believing that tomorrow will simply be a repeat of today, nothing new, the future simply an unbroken string of today’s, one after another. But curiosity. Curiosity disrupts despair, insisting that tomorrow will not be a repeat of today. Curiosity whispers to you, ‘you’re just getting started.’"

Tomorrow will not be a repeat of today. Since March 2020, I've had to tell myself that as a mantra some days. I don't always believe myself, but I say it over and over anyway.

2022 will not be 2020 or 2021 all over again. That's what we all need to know - even if, worst case scenario, the context of 2022 ends up being pretty darn reminiscent of 2020. Even then, it won't be the same. Not because of vaccinations or "test-to-stay" policies in schools or more rapid home tests or whatever tactical shifts we might throw out there. The days, months, and year ahead will be different because we are different. It will not be a repeat of the same thing, over and over.

In his memoir of life in a concentration camp and the real-world test of his theory of meaning, Viktor Frankl writes in Man's Search for Meaning about the power of choice within external constraints. Despite extreme deprivation and uncertainty, he remains curious every single day. He's changing and growing and questioning daily, and he argues that this "will to meaning" - a basic need to create meaning through suffering, work and love - keeps him alive.

And of course it did. Because, as Rob Bell says, curiosity is the antidote to despair. Curiosity is what keeps us functioning and growing. Even in the most despairing of times.

"Curiosity is underrated," Bell writes. "In many ways it’s the engine of life. You get these questions and they don’t go away. So you follow them. You set out to answer them. And you get answers. And those answers, of course, lead to new questions. And on and on it goes."

There's forward motion in noticing even the slightest tickle of curiosity and then embracing the questions it plants within us. However small or externally imperceptible that forward motion might be, it's forward motion all the same.

Which is why I center my coaching on questions. Sure, I could give straightforward advice and offer up specific strategies. Sometimes I do, when the situation calls for that form of consulting. But coaching - and living - is about moving forward and, therefore, has to be built on noticing curiosity and acting upon it. The best answers arise from answering questions ourselves, not from some "expert" telling us what we should do and how.

Design thinking is central to my coaching process and to my life. The pragmatic and concrete steps, as laid out in Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, use knowledge and curiosity in an iterative loop to move us forward. We can't know exactly where we'll end up when we start the process of using design thinking - which is exactly the point - but if we follow through on the basic steps, we will land somewhere amazingly grounded and perfect for us. It's scary and vulnerable to enter into such an experience, an experience where we can't know the ending. But there's a bit of thrill in it, too. A bit of, "what will come of this?" The antidote to despair indeed.

"There’s a humility baked into curiosity," Bell writes. "You don’t know, that’s your starting point. You’re coming from a place of openness, driven by a conviction that there’s something more, something beyond you, something else out there. "

So in 2022, come what may with the pandemic and the many constraints it may impose upon us, let us embrace curiosity to be creative within those constraints.

"I didn't want to live my life wondering, 'what if?'," Bell writes. "I'd seen people do that. They had something nudging them in a particular direction but they didn't follow it, they didn't take the risk, they didn't listen to their heart. And years later they felt stuck, wondering where it all went wrong. I didn't want to live like that. I wanted to know, 'what if I tried that?'"

What are you curious to try? I figure 2022 looks as good a year as ever to explore it. Pandemic or no.