You never know

Thinking a lot about the ageless curious mind.  I've had young, exceptionally smart friends with no interest beyond what touched their immediate lives.  I've had older friends of somewhat below average intelligence who were filled with curiosity about what lay around the next corner, over the next horizon.  Guess which of the two people felt drawn to, enjoyed talking with?

Earlier today, I wrote about an older friend who discovered, in her early nineties, that she wasn't as all-consumed with opposition to something she'd always been against.  It wasn't that she necessarily supported it - she was willing to hear about it, to see it with a fresh, non-judgmental eye.  She was curious.

Interesting thing about that particular older friend - she couldn't have done that in her mid-70s.  Up until her late seventies, what she believed as a young adult was what she believed then.  She'd explain why she'd done something with "It's what I've always done (or believed)" & she saw nothing wrong in that response.  It was true.

But her above-average intelligence was paired with an above-average curiosity.  She didn't know it, but her mind heart soul was open to a BIG change. 

 

One day, a friend mentioned a name she'd never heard before - Viktor Frankl.  She went to the library & checked out Man's Search for Meaning.  His claim that we always have the freedom to choose our response was, to her, radical & revolutionary.  It changed her life.  Especially his point that between stimulus & response is the flicker of a moment where we choose our response.

 

She was about to turn eighty, when a chance comment by a friend lead to learning more, to reading more, to an unimaginable awakening.  You never know what will spark an AH HA! moment, an idea or thought or random comment that changes everything.  If we have a curious mind open to new thoughts, a willing spirit to hear what is said, and a heart courageous enough to enter new, exciting yet unfamiliar terrain.