Curiosity – the fuel driving Resilience

Asking questions is the self-motivated way a child learns about its world. A bright, active child asks endless questions. A child’s curiosity is inborn; curiosity is not something that has to be taught.

More than any other species, we humans are born needling to learn how to survive in this world. Human children are not like insects and small animals born with pre-programmed neurology for finding food and shelter or avoiding danger and predators. “Lower” creatures have their brains hardwired, so to speak. The young can survive very soon without parental protection or help. But the more a creature’s behaviour is pre-programmed, the less its behaviour can be altered through learning. The less pre-programming, the more a creature can alter its behaviour through learning.

Needing to learn how to live in this world gives humans many choices. They can find safe environments, create environments that are safe for them, or learn how to survive in a new environment.

Curiosity is an inborn quality in all healthy children. Young human children are like adventurers who set out each day to discover and explore an amazing world. Children get into things, poke, bang, taste, and play with an unending array of new objects. Children crawl at first, then climb, learn to walk, and one day they discover they can run. It’s an exciting time. As children learn to talk, their curiosity is expressed in questions. Asking “Why….?” goes on and on. In this manner, children learn about themselves and their environment, and develop competence for dealing effectively with their environment.

Curiosity is essential to resiliency. Why? For a simple reason; if you are going to interact effectively with new situations, your brain must quickly acquire an accurate understanding of what is happening in your environment. Resiliency is increased when you quickly comprehend the unexpected new reality; it is decreased in people who don’t comprehend the new reality.

Curiosity can be viewed as a sort of   “open-brainedness” This open-brainedness does not distort new information with pre-existing assumptions or beliefs. Active curiosity lets you orient yourself to new development.

People who have the best chance of handling new situations well are usually those with the best comprehension of what is occurring in the world around them. In contrast, people who have incorrect or distorted perceptions of what is happening in the world outside their bodies are not able to cope well and may not survive.

People with closed minds refuse to listen to information or feedback that they don’t want to hear. It is not unusual for newspapers and magazines to run stories about how the executives of bankrupt corporations refused to listen to what their employees or customers tried to tell them.

In 1947, three scientists working in the Bell Labs at AT&T invented the transistor; a tiny electronic device that could replace the large glass tubes used in radios and would last longer. Transistors are now known to be one of the most important inventions of the 20^th century; they are the precursors of the omnipresent ICs. In 1956, the three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their work. But at the time, the executives at all the major US             radio-manufacturing companies declared that the public would never accept transistorized radios. In Japan, however, executives, with the Sony Corporation saw the potential in the scientific breakthrough. They created a shirt-pocket-sized Sony transistor radio, within a short time, US radio manufacturers lost most of the market for portable radios to the Japanese, all because corporate executives in the United States refused to be open-minded and adopt a new technology that US scientists had invented. (Ref. Transistor development history at www.pbs.org/transistor )

When you listen to people talk about what they believe and perceive, it often becomes clear that beliefs they hold do not match up with what is happening in the world. They have inaccurate perceptions about events and refuse to listen to anything inconsistent with what they believe.

How about you? Have you ever refused to accept the truth about something? Have you ever had something go bad because you weren’t paying attention to what was going on? Have you ever missed noticing that the “Cheese” is moving and it’s about time you should move and go in search of new cheese?

Being aware is the primary requirement. Being aware about your immediate environment – professional and personal, would do well for you in being forewarned about an imminent situation, which will give you time to prepare for it. This awareness will help you in finding and evaluating your options, like avoiding, handling, for finding an alternative course. This preparedness would be the key to your survival.

Many of the problems that we see did not occur suddenly; there were tell-tale signs much before they actually took the mammoth proportions. Even in diseases like cancer, in most cases there are warning signs, which most people ignore and when doctor informs them that if you had noticed these things you should have come to me earlier, then the situation would have been lot better than it is now.

Curiosity and intuitiveness always keeps you ahead of surprises. If curiosity is a strong trait in you, you react to a surprising incident or unexpected development by wondering what is going on. An automatic openness to absorb new information epitomizes survivor resiliency. Curiosity is a valuable habit. Whether going for a walk or reacting to an emergency, you are open and alert to external circumstances, events or developments.

The curiosity habit prepares you to read new realities rapidly. Your quick scan of a critical situation may include a fast reading of what other people are thinking, feeling, and doing. This ability to take information rapidly is a form of high-speed learning.

Give yourself a small challenge to check your curiosity and awareness level. Look around you and see the various gadgets, equipment, machinery, systems and processes. Now check do you know what is the technology mechanism or process behind all these. You are out in the parking lot, you see it’s cloudy and it might rain, do you know there are types of clouds? Do you know what type of clouds bring rain? How does it rain? These are preliminary school level questions, but do you know or remember the answers of these questions?

Do you delight in being curious? Are you curious about the meanings of words? Do you sometime look for etymology of a word which you read? Do you refer to a dictionary in case you don’t know the meaning of a word? Or you don’t bother about it if you could get the hang of the content that you read? Small tests, but they will tell you how inquisitive or curious you are, i.e. it will help you assess how strong your foundation is for being resilient.

They say, curiosity killed the cat, but remember you are not one. Stay curious, stay inquisitive, and be resilient.