curiosity
While I eagerly (read: impatiently) await the next season of the Apple TV series Ted Lasso, I find myself dialing back to rewatch and recapture snippets of the magic that this show has created in its 2 seasons. Ted Lasso aired during a time in our lives where many of us felt anchorless and found it a bit hard to find a bright side to life. Enter this unconventional, charming hero who only ever drinks still water from a glass that is half full and not half empty...
(Before I go any further, if you have not seen Ted Lasso, I am going to need you to reschedule your plans for the week and get watching. It is really THAT GOOD!)
I have always wondered at people like Ted Lasso...people who cannot help but deal in the currencies of authenticity and goodness. This vision, this lens through which they see life as a landscape of possibility (I believe) is what makes these souls so very wise and wonderful. Their perspective is something I crave, and their curiosity is the foundation upon which I seat my inspiration. (I may have a teensy crush forming...)
A scene exemplifying Ted's gift for imparting profound truth through quiet sincerity reveals itself during a pivotal dart game in Season 1 (which can be watched by clicking the link below).
Ted shares a quote attributed to one of the foremost writers in our history:
"Be curious, not judgmental."
While there is debate about this statement truly being written by the great Walt Whitman, of what is there is no doubt are the impact of these 4 words.
They are simple. They are precise.
And if you allow them to do so, they will shift the lens through which you see ...EVERYTHING.
Watch the Dart Scene from Ted Lasso: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_FofLSherM
Curiosity and Judgment exist in my mind as a fork in the road...a choice we will continue to make on our Life Journey. We will choose one way OR the other, which will very likely shape our interactions with people, our assessments of something we have read or heard, and most assuredly the processes we employ as we consider our own next steps in life.
When we allow ourselves to be curious about something, we make room to explore it. Curiosity, by its very nature, breeds openness. It can be an invitation to see something or someone not only from the inside out but as an experience that is completely new and unknown. With this perspective, we are able to leave our pre-conceived notions outside the door and walk in to the room open and present.
Doesn't that sound good? ..even liberating?
I have begun to adopt a lens of curiosity in my own life and am being shown through this growth process how exhausting judgment can be. When I spend the majority of my time being a Judgey McJudgerpants, I am on the job...narrowing my focus as I work to nail down an identity and label for everything that steps in front of me.
...These unconscious assessments that have been valuable for my learning and that I have used hundreds of thousands of times before...
I see now how they hamper the privilege I have of using my in the moment senses and feelings. (I call them my curiosity muscles).
When I flex these "curiosity muscles" in real time, I can absorb and flow with WHAT IS. I get to be wholly myself in the experience, as I release the identities and labels, limitations and expectations I have placed on who I am in this current moment of my life. I offer that same gift to whomever and whatever is also within the scope of my experience. Whether this is a walk in the same patch of woods I traverse daily or a conversation with a stranger who waits behind me in line at the supermarket, I have the opportunity to truly let this moment be new and to let every moment to come exist inside a judgement-free zone of possibility and just a little bit of wonder.
If each of us were to experiment with this concept, we would work to shuck our attachment to Judgement (like yesterday's news!) and replace it (again and again) with the free flowing permission of Curiosity. We would remind ourselves to relax away from old opinions that have told us who we are and how what we are doing defines us. These previously formed opinions say NOTHING about who we are now...they never have. We are constantly growing and expanding, and we are new in every moment. By staying present, we witness our feelings and observations and allow the choices we make to reveal their purpose over time. When we are collaborating with life, the compulsion to judge how things should turn out begins to soften and eventually to fade. Our "work" is in developing an appreciation for the journey and not the finish line as the rich reward of our lifetimes. And who knows where that next "curiosity fork" in the road will take us and who we will meet along the way...
...I, for one, can't wait to find out.
What if TODAY you used this newfound lens of wondrous Curiosity to celebrate all the wonderful, unique, and yet-to-be explored places and spaces inside beautiful, wonderful you?!?!!?
...Now, back to the Ted Lasso binge...
