Curiosity is an important attribute to have if you wish to see your desires, dreams, and goals come to fruition. At one point during my junior year of college, I thought in my dorm room about law schools I would be interested in attending. I said to myself, whenever Berea hosts a law school fair, there are always the same three school: The University of Kentucky, The University of Louisville, and Northern Kentucky University. We had just had one and I realized that I was not being exposed to the amount of law schools that really existed, and quite frankly the schools Berea brought did not interest me very much. I was interested in schools with prestigious reputations. See, I used a principle I will discuss later for now let us just say I did not accept what Berea put in front of me. My curiosity and thirst for more law schools led me to start researching online. I randomly ran across the Law School Admission Council’s (LSAC) website, created an account, and noticed that they actually hosted national law school forums. I remember saying aloud, I have to go to at least one of these. I ended up going to Chicago, Illinois where I met awesome people and more importantly landed a good spot in a good law school. If it was not for my curiosity, I would have never went to Chicago and made the connections. Curiosity, just like thinking positively, is a deliberate action. You have to make yourself a curious person. Although some people are naturally curious. Be curious about the right things though. Further, be curious about things you do not know. Some benefits of curiosity are, first you ask yourself great questions and try to find the answers. Second, you ask great questions to other people in hopes of finding more great answers.
Curiosity helps foster knowledge too. When you are curious about something, you search until you find the answer. For me, I always read. As a matter of fact, I keep a personal website where I keep track of all the books I read each year. If you are interested to see what I read in my spare time, or you want ideas about good reads, I encourage you to visit my site at www.bibliofun.com. Become curious about what other successful individuals read. Whenever I meet someone whom I admire, one of the first questions I ask him or her is "What books changed your life that you think I should read." See, first off, not too many people are asking questions like this, so you automatically become unique to this person. I have received so many free books by being curious and asking this simple question.
Be curious about the world. Never settle for your present area of residence. Aspire to travel to different places globally. Remember, identify what you want, then make it happen. Being curious about the world does not mean you should just sit and wonder about it. Go explore it! As a child, I said to myself, I want to go to Africa someday and sure enough, it happened.
I have always been curious about meeting people, whether important or despised. As a Berea college student, I have to attend at least seven convocations (convo) per semester. If you are reading this and you attend or have graduated from a liberal arts college, then you know exactly what I am talking about. After each interesting convo, my curiosity never allows me to miss an opportunity to chat with the speakers. I have made many connections and learned many things from just being curious about meeting people. I never backed down from an opportunity to make a connection. Although someone told me once that I should not focus so much on expanding my network, but rather build the relationships I currently have. I thought his words were very wise and I keep that in the back of my mind. Because true enough, it becomes stressful trying to manage and invest in several relationships at one time. So even with mentors I am very selective and I monitor how many people I let into my circle of influence.
Finally, be curious, but not too curious, because, remember, curiosity killed the cat.
