Cultivating Curiosity

Description

Kenton Whitman talks about the benefits of curiosity, and how to cultivate it in your life. Visit http://rewildu.com/classes/ for unique educational opportunities in rewilding, wilderness skills, mindfulness, martial arts, primal fitness, homesteading, and more.

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Video Transcription

I think that most of us are actively trying to cultivate virtues or qualities in ourselves in our lives and one of the most remarkable qualities that we can have in our lives is the one called curiosity we don't usually hear much about curiosity we hear about virtues like courage strength we try to cultivate intelligence willpower but curiosity that one if anything it has a bad rap we've all heard that that saying curiosity killed the cat but to me curiosity is the key to continued growth as a human being for me curiosity is the opposite of judgment and when I judge a person or a judge a situation that means that all opportunities for growth have disappeared so if I meet a new person and I decide that they are really silly and don't know a thing about Bush crowd they don't know anything about nature then I can't learn from them anymore I've already written them off and anything they say or do will be seen through that lens of judgment or imagine that you're sitting down in a group of 10 people and roll doing bow drill you're hoping to learn something from each other you see one person and they are doing it really oddly you look and you make a decision that they have no idea what they're doing and that that is not going to work you no longer going to be paying attention to them I've had many instances where I've learned remarkable things from people when I wanted to judge them I wanted to judge their actions and say they were way off base but when I stopped and I paid attention even if they fail at getting a fire with their bow drill I might learn something even if it's learning what not to do out in nature curiosity is amazing as soon as I look over at a forest they get curious about it that leads me wandering over to see that new area that I haven't explored before curiosity is what gets me looking underneath logs it's what gets me learning new plants and new mushrooms to eat it's what gets me

climbing a tree to see what I can see from the top without curiosity I would tend to just walk along the same paths tread the same trails I'd miss a lot really I think of curiosity is the key to vibrant living it's what allows all the relationships in our lives to be constantly renewed because we really honestly never know what a person is going to say next or what they're going to do that's what allows us to wake up every single day excited about the day to come because every day holds adventure we don't know what waits for us of course we can decide we know what's waiting for us in the day I had that often becomes a frustrating venture because when the day doesn't pan out quite as we imagine if we're looking with judgment we wanted our day to be a certain way and it's not we can get pretty upset but if we're curious wondering what's going to come it's impossible to get frustrated if you're interested in cultivating curiosity here's what I do the first thing is I say I don't know to me that's a very important phrase I don't know I don't know what my day holds ahead of me I don't know the best way to start a fire in the rain I don't know what a person is going to say next and I don't know what's behind me right now all that I don't know that creates a sense of curiosity because when I know I've invoked judgment the other way that i cultivate curiosity in my life is to use the phrase I wonder what dot dot dot I wonder what is going to happen today I wonder what I'll find when I climb that tree I wonder what is in that cave even I wonder what or a wonder how I'm gonna feel an hour from now when I leave that open door of wonder in regards to all the events of my life my emotional state my thoughts the actions of the people around me then life is wide open judgment curiosity the judging mind it cannot learn it thinks that it knows everything and it shuts its eyes and growth can't happen anymore the curious mind not just opens and branches and grows to me that's what makes curiosity is so amazing let me know in the comments what you think of curiosity what role it plays in your life and how you cultivate it in your day-to-day living thanks for watching