I saw this quote on my cousin’s Facebook feed this morning and thought about how true this is. Curiosity is a blessing and a curse all wrapped up together with the fact that as far as we know, we only get one lifetime. Personally, I do not have enough time to go down every rabbit hole my curiosity wants to take, but by golly I’m going to try!
A friend asked me recently how I do everything I do. The answer is “I do lots of things, but not necessarily lots of things well”. That is also a blessing and a curse.
I would love to excel in a couple of areas, but to really do that I would have to give up soooo many other things that I want to do, try, learn, places to visit and explore. BUT I will admit, quite happily, that I NEVER GET BORED! Boredom is a waste of your precious life. Whether it is one passion or a thousand, curiosity is what makes you dig deeper, study more, practice more, give more, smile more and get out of bed with leap instead of a moan.
Another conversation recently was about a wealthy family a loved one spent some time with. He said, “they have so much money and all they can find to do is sit around and drink every evening, all evening.” That, my friends, is a waste of a life. Good heavens, spend some of that money and go travel or see if you can make someone else’s life better with it. Don’t drink it!
How do you break out of the boredom routine? Let me see if I can give some suggestions if you need help.
- Pick one little subject that you have a speck of interest in and start doing some research. Not boring classroom research, but real life research. Example: I started out growing herbs to cook with. During my Pinterest time I would pin articles about growing herbs and read about them. Those articles often described the healing properties of herbs and plants. To make a long story short, I now have started making my own herbal remedies to use and discovering that most of what we call weeds are beneficial plants. This summer I have wandered around learning plant names and properties that I have looked at all my life and knew nothing about.
- Take something that you perceive as a need and find a solution. Example (sorry, I’m using me for all these, but I can’t speak for how other folks find their rabbit holes) – I needed honey. I had always gotten my raw honey from my Dad, but when my sister and brother-in-law started expanding his honey business the honey was often sold out before I could restock my supply. I realized that now that I live out in the country again I could have bees and have my own honey supply. Sounds easy enough until you have to research how to keep 60,000 bees alive. Guess what! Bees are fascinating little creatures. I am now officially a bee fanatic.
- Take a new road. Example – see my post about finding my way around my new part of the world. I am seriously racking up new ideas for drawings and painting by just turning down a road that I haven’t been down before. The views here are amazing. In more populated areas (we don’t have a grocery store here if that explains anything) you could run across a music store where you could learn to play an instrument, a plant nursery where you could get herb plants, a school that would love to have volunteers to help students read. It is endless.
- This may be the most important one. Do not be afraid to fail at something! I repeat – DO NOT BE AFRAID TO FAIL! With the possible exception of certain extreme risk taking passions, most endeavors are not life threating and not un-repairable. Yes, one more Example from the home front – Floor tiling. We decided to tile our floors ourselves. Since I am the detail person that primarily means ME. No, I had never stuck the first tile to a floor EVER when I started. That is what YouTube is for. I am 85% finished with the floor and am pretty darn pleased with the way it has turned out. A professional tile guy could find my mistakes, but I bet you couldn’t. Even if I had messed the floor up, we had saved enough money by doing it ourselves that we could have hired the tile guy to come fix my mess. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO FAIL!
My cousin, who posted the above quote, and my sister are both smitten with the curiosity curse as well. Enter ballroom dancing, photography, welding, raising llamas…maybe it’s a genetic curse.
Curse or blessing, Curiosity just makes life FUN. If you want a break from the depressing news and elections go find a rabbit hole to fall into. Your TV will get dusty, Facebook friends will send out a search party and your budget may or may not (curiosity does not have to be expensive) take a beating, but life will get very interesting and colorful and exciting.
Why are you still here? Go!
Pencils, Paint & Paper 