My dad used to say, “If you are always curious, you will never be bored.” So when I was a kid, if I ever said I was bored — or acted bored — my loving dad suddenly turned into Vincent Price.
“B-O-O-O-R-E-D?”
“B-O-O-R-E-D?”
The famous eyebrow would arch and he would fix me with a stare.
“Boredom,” he would pronounce with Biblical authority, “Boredom is the eighth deadly sin. Living in a world like this, so full of wonder, how could ANYONE possibly be bored?”
Now that I had been relegated to the bottom of the human barrel, you would think I would feel terrible. But this was the difference between my mom and my dad. My mom’s lessons were often fear-based. But my dad’s were based in Love.
He loved being alive. He loved the world. He loved learning. He loved being human. And so what he always did next — wherever we were, whatever we were doing — was show me everything and anything there was to be curious about! Be it rocks or paintings. Be it a hamburger or an opera. Be it a street sign or a book. My dad taught me that if we are curious about life, we will always feel alive.
Much of the world is deep into a period of deep stillness. And many people are struggling with it. With the fears that come knocking daily — through phone calls or friends or through the media or a glance at our bank accounts or financial services that don’t offer much financial service. With the lack of distraction, diversion. The sameness. The isolation that can lead to loneliness. Or living cheek by jowl day after day with people who can’t leave the house.
Alcohol sales in the United States are up 200%. Protests are increasing. We are not a nation that knows either how to sit still or how to deal with much outside of our collective comfort zones.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been sharing some of my heart-centered practices for dealing with fear and leaning into the healing power of Love. Today I share one of my dad’s go-to practices: BE Curious.
Take this opportunity to learn about something, someone, someplace, yourself.
Or when you feel at odds with yourself or others or the world and unsettled in your own soul, just look around you. Look out your window. Take a walk and look at everything you see. Give yourself permission to be curious. And then let yourself follow the trail of curiosity to wherever it leads.
Boredom is an illusion. Boredom is simply an indicator that we have inadvertently turned our engines off, and need the electricity of curiosity to jump start our joy in living.
So try BEing curious today as your heart-centered practice. My dad swore by it. So do I. It reminds us just how alive we are — and how grateful we can be for our world!
If you’d like to listen to today’s blog, here you go. . .