"Curiosity is the seed of all intelligence"
I don't know how many times I have said this to my daughters.
I am not talking about the kind of curiosity that involves peeping through locker-room keyholes or hacking into your best-friend’s email address, but constantly questioning the world, reading books, leveraging online resources and real people to learn about anything you have the tiniest interest in.
It is no surprise that I would be preaching to them since the day they were born as if it were a religion.
I become obsessed with new topics, hobbies and projects every other day of the week.
And for a long time, this is something I was proud of. It was part of my identity, a big part of the story I was telling the world about myself.
"Look at me, jack of all trades !"
I will turn 42 this year, and I'm not sure this really is a good thing anymore.
I can hear you coming with your "mid-life" crisis cliché theory.
I have been through enough of both crises and life over the last 40 years to know this is the logical progression of my journey.
Since coming out the other side of cancer 14 years ago, I committed to become a better version of myself and a better person for the people around me.
One of the decisions I made back then was that I would find my purpose in life.
Done were the days of slaving away in an office only to enjoy evenings, weekends, and a few weeks of holidays per year until retirement finally hits.
I wanted to find happiness in the now, in every fiber of my being, in every moment of my living.
Find joy in the work I was doing so much that I'd lose track of space and time entirely.
Not be waiting for a distant future that only existed in my head.
Since being a teenager I kept telling people I felt I was "only surfing through my life, like a mere spectator rather the the leading role in it".
I recently found what Gurwinder Bhogal calls "The Deferred Happiness Syndrome", which puts this into words better than I could ever have:
The common feeling that your life has not yet begun.
That your present reality is a mere Prelude to some idyllic future.
This idyll is a mirage that'll fade as you approach,
revealing that the Prelude you rushed through
was in fact the one to your death.
- Gurwinder Bhogal
It took me a long time to realize that this is how I was feeling.
Then began the ruminations and this sense of urgency that life was going to end without me ever finding peace.
This is what led me to search for "my thing" by following my curiosity restlessly.
I see none of the choices I made - wrong or right, whether they brought me pleasure or pain - as time wasted.
Only victims look at the past that way.
Developing skills across a broad range of areas has had a beneficial impact on my life.
Above all, it made me useful. Isn't that what we all crave to be ?
What a fantastic feeling when people close to you start calling your name to help them fix their house, then their body, their mind and eventually help them figure out their life.
I thrived in helping others find a way through many obstacles on their path.
But for a long time I failed to see that fixing other people’s problems was just a proxy for fixing my own. The neurochemical reward was the same, it’s just that it came without the potential cost and responsibility of failing.
Time has passed, and I like to think I made a lot of progress on that side - save for a financial immaturity which impedes me greatly - and I now look at my relentless obsession to learn with a newfound curiosity.
What if by focusing on one thing at the expense of all others, I made the wrong choice and ended up wasting one, three or even ten years headed in the wrong direction ?
Or what if I got really good at something only to realize too late it never brought the peace nor the financial freedom I was so desperate to achieve ?
It does not take a genius to realize that both these statements are rooted in fear.
The same fear that keeps people ruminating over what their purpose in life could be.
But you see, the thing is no purpose has been assigned to us at birth.
We can look for it as long and hard as we like, we will never get to the bottom of it inside our heads.
This is not where our purpose hides.
"Thinking your way out of thinking problems
is like sniffing your way out of a cocaine addiction"
- Chris Williamson -
Don't wait for the stars to align, they never will.
Don't wait for the light to shine upon you, bringing forth the answer of the universe - it's 42, in case you wonder.
The only way to find your THING is to start SOMETHING.
If you follow your curiosity, no choice will ever be wasted.
Find something.
Something that interests you. Something that brings the belly butterflies and makes your heart go boom. Something that makes you say "hey man, that sounds so cool".
Even if just a tingling, just a sprinkle of fuel.
Then go for it.
Nobody watches you yet.
Nobody expects you to stick with it.
Because…
"It is better to be directionally correct than absolutely correct [...]
I think what happens is most people are trying to find the perfect answer
when they have no perspective from which to make a judgment.
They're trying to find the perfect thing to do and they haven't done anything"
- Alex Hormozi -
So it's in trying things - even when you're not sure, even when you're scared - that you'll learn to read the signs life throws at you when you reach a new fork on the road.
Only then can you take the turn that brings you closer to who you really are, rather than the one that leads to who the world said you should be.