Choose to Be Curious  
 

'I am curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice. And so she was, little Alice, in Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland.     

Generally understood, curiosity is the desire to learn or know about anything; inquisitiveness. Psychologists have not studied it much, and it often seems to be a rather elusive condition. As author Ian Crofton writes, Curiosity is an infinitely subjective emotion, and thus what brings about a distending of the nostrils and sharpening of the eyes in one person may well induce an indifferent shrug, or even a drooping eyelid, in another.     

In conversation, to be curious is a definite plus. Being curious, even fascinated, by another helps to engage us and to validate the other as an interesting person. Conversely, to be bored by or indifferent to the other is felt as invalidating, as if we are saying You hold no interest for me. You're not interesting.     

In a broader sense, to be incurious can be troublesome in life. As human relations author Dale Carnegie wrote:     

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.     

All? Well, maybe not. But many, yes. Consider the spouse who shows no curiosity about what the partner is thinking or feeling, or the parent who does not wonder about the thoughts and inner lives of the children. Consider the manager, thinking s/he knows everything about the business and who expresses no interest in the employees' ideas.     

Dr. Edward De Bono, whose programs on thinking have taught whole countries to think, believes that people can learn to think in creative ways so that they are not only occasionally curious, but are routinely curious about ideas, problems, and people. Having a trained and agile mind allows us easily to explore, to wonder, and to question. Such minds are in stark contrast to those minds that are fixed and frozen, those of dunces and dogmatists. When  we can think with flexible mental tools, curiosity can become a frame of mind. (See De Bono's many books, including his Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking.)     

We can also choose to be interested and curious. Who has not taken a required course of study that held no interest at the outset but then, when the student sees that being uninterested in the subject results in poor learning and  performance, chooses to be interested in order to learn better.     

The same is true for our curiosity about people. For example, a husband whose marital relationship is troubled, who faces estrangement and even divorce because he expresses so little interest in his wife may choose to become interested in his wife and what she has to say. When he changes his thinking and his attitudes, his conversational behavior also changes. He pays close attention. He asks questions. He listens carefully.     

I observe that many people try to be interesting to people instead of simply being interested in others. When we are interested in others, their interest in us will usually follow. However, trying to be interesting makes us self-conscious and even vain, whereas being genuinely interested in and curious about people will make your conversations and overall life experience a rich adventure.