“Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.”
If you’ve clicked around online, you’ve surely stumbled across this image or others like it with the simple, profound phrase: replace fear of the unknown with curiosity. When I first saw it, I printed it out and it’s tacked onto the board above my desk. So is this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
I have these notes and countless others like them surrounding my work space and scribbled into the pages of my journals and notebooks. I’ve been thinking a lot about fear over the last few weeks. Solitude on a sailboat in the Sea of Cortez definitely frees the brain to tackle obstacles that have been buried for months.
I was on the boat with kick-ass filmmaker Andy Maser, a man who is incredibly talented at replacing any fear he may have with curiosity. It’s always fun to watch the wheels turning in another person’s brain… One day we woke up to a large pod of dolphins in a feeding frenzy a few hundred yards from where we were anchored. They were leaping into the air, diving and rounding up what I can only assume was a gigantic school of delicious fish. The dolphins were psyched and so were the dozens of pelicans, seagulls and Friggit birds that were swooping in for a taste of the feast. Andy had barely rubbed the sleep from his eyes when he started pulling on his wetsuit and busting out his camera gear. Before I knew it, he and our good friend Hayden had leapt into the dingy and were racing for the dolphins. Now, I consider myself an adventurous person, but I wasn’t too keen on leaping from my sleeping bag into the open ocean with a pod of very hungry dolphins, especially when I hadn’t even had a first cup of coffee. But I admired the overpowering curiosity that drove those two into the sea of swarming dolphins.
Since I’ve returned to Portland I’ve learned that a couple of my friends rung in the new year on a flying trapeze… what is it like to fly through the air with the greatest of ease? And my friend Ethan Smith (a fabulous designer, mind you) posted this wonderful little video from Skillshare…
The Future Belongs to the Curious from Skillshare on Vimeo.
via Skillshare:
Curiosity.
We’re all born with it. Albert Einstein dubbed it “holy,” Alistair Cooke called it “free-wheeling intelligence.” It’s that piquing force that nudges us to try it again, explore it some more, poke at it, question it and turn it inside out. From the moment we open our eyes, it fuels our existence. With each new answer we find, our world expands and our passions grow.
And lastly, my dog Woody made me think more about curiosity on our walk today. He is one of the most curious creatures I’ve ever known and perhaps one of the most fearless. I spent our jaunt quietly watching him sniff trees and stop to stare intensely at a squirrel swinging from a branch… what if I was that curious? That intensely aware of my surroundings? I swear he teaches me so much about being a better, more patient, more adventurous and curious human every day.
As I get ready to shut down my computer this Friday, I’m thinking about fear and curiosity. Running my own business has been an adventure, it’s been incredibly rewarding and incredibly scary, but today as I think about the year ahead, I’m replacing any fear I have of the unknown path ahead with curiosity. Cheers to the every day adventures.
Happy Friday!
