Last week was about defaulting to compassion. This week is about taking things apart, exploring, and being curious.
This week kicked off our 4th year of homeschool. On top of my wife teaching the kids at home, they also have a couple of co-op programs they attend. This semester my wife is teaching a class at the co-op that is all about taking things apart. On Monday she brought in a bunch of old printers that people had donated to her. She gave the class their own set of safety goggles and tools, a quick lesson about tools and safety, and then let them get to work dismantling the printers. The class LOVED this! They went right to work with their tools, carefully deconstructing the printers to gain a deeper understanding of how they worked. They loved having their curiosity guide them as they explored things they hadn’t seen before. At the end of the class, they asked my wife if they could keep some of the pieces from inside the printers to keep studying.
What does this have to do with anything? Have you ever been in a situation where you thought to yourself, “Why wasn’t that person more curious? If they would have just asked a few more questions they could have figured it out instead of jumping to a poor solution?” I know I’ve thought things like that. Have you ever been the person who didn’t take the time to explore? I’ve been that person too.
Our story this week is all about taking the time to be curious and explore something. I’m assuming that many of us were like those kids when we were younger. Maybe we loved taking things apart with our hands. Maybe we loved asking zillions of questions to understand how EVERYTHING works. As we get older, it’s easy to lose that curiosity. It’s easy to get so caught up that we lose the willingness to explore things. As a result, we miss out on the chance to think critically about how things work and we miss out on opportunities to make things better. Just think about how much better work and life would be if we all spent a few extra moments from time-to-time deconstructing and exploring things, whether they are policies, machines, relationships, or our own feelings.
The challenge: How will you make the time to explore and be curious?
#mywifeisprettyamazing
Have a jolly good day,
Andrew Embry
Striking Matches 