Spending time with family and friends over the festive holidays has meant that I have spent time in the company of young children and it has been fascinating to observe their inquisitiveness.
Present opening, I am sure like in many other households, was enjoyable and frantic. Very small children seem to prefer playing with the wrapping paper or the box in which the toys came and sometimes disregarded the actual item itself. It started me thinking about the value we assign to items once we are in a position to understand what the word value means. With very little experience of the world, babies tend to place equal value on items until through learning and reinforcement they come to realise that some items have more or less value to them than other items. Next year will be interesting to see whether they are still more excited by the wrapping paper or by the actual gift itself?
So what have I reflected on in terms of my own curiosity over the last couple of weeks? It has been difficult to assign equal value to objects or aspects of situations because my experience and knowledge which I cannot un-know causes me to apply my own set of personal filters to those objects and situations causing me to come to a biased conclusion.
When working with business people to help develop their creative thinking skills, I often encourage people to: try and see something through the eyes of a child (i.e. be non-judgemental, place equal value on aspects of the object / situation, experience the object or the situation as if for the first time) but this week has reminded me that this is sometimes easier said than done. But following one of my principles which is start making a change by taking small actions, I have been trying out new experiences such as:
· Reading a section of the newspaper that I would normally discard
· Watching a film or a TV programme that I would normally find myself saying “I’m not interested in ......”
· Finding an alternative walking route to the station / shops
· Researching a subject but from an alternative / unusual perspective
This has reminded me that there are new things for me to experience that are within my immediate reach, no matter how inconsequential that experience may seem and which will help to retain my child-like curiosity!
On the other hand, we can take a leap of faith and immerse ourselves in some of the bigger questions life throws at us. http://curiosity.discovery.com/
