My college experience was filled with people who were there for a variety of reasons. They needed the education for a career. They wanted to meet someone…that special someone. They were fulfilling what their parents wanted for them. They wanted a place to excel in their sport…And a thousand more reasons. But it is a curious observation that many if not most stops reading and learning the day they graduate. Their quest is over. They got the job, the girl, or the trophy. But there were a few that got the “bug” called curiosity.
Curious people not only ask questions but also continue to seek out the answers for their entire life. Without curiosity, Sir Isaac Newton would have never formulated the laws of physics. In 1726, Newton shared the story of the apple anecdote with William Stukeley, who included it in a biography, “Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life,” published in 1752. The apple didn’t fall on his head, but after dinner one evening Newton sat drinking tea in the garden under the shade of some apple trees. He observed some apples fall to the ground, he began contemplating gravity, and as they say, “the rest is history.”
You might want to take his example to heart, “Leaders Learn.” They never stop observing, reading, asking, probing, prodding…you get the point. I’ve done my best to read a book every week. I fall short sometimes, but the goal itself has kept me motivated to improve. Improve what? Everything! Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Philippians 4:9 says, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”