Are you curious or nosy? – E09

Are you curious about anything? What exactly? Or maybe you are a meddler? Are you nosy? Do you discover the world or do you pry?

Welcome to my next episode.

Listen to “09 – Are you curious or nosy?” on Spreaker.

Transcript

Are you curious about anything? What exactly? Or maybe you are a meddler? Are you nosy? Do you discover the world or do you pry?

Welcome to my next episode.

This is the podcast 8 Minutes to Success. I’m Kinga Panufnik and I invite you to spend the next 8 minutes with me.

On my way to success I’ve learnt a lot from others. That is why I’ d like to share my personal experience with you.

Welcome.

When I was young, me and family went to my grandparents’ house where I met my cousin. Suddenly she touched a very hot heating stove and she burnt her fingers a little. It wasn’t a huge burn, but I remember her screaming and crying. Everybody had told her not to touch it. But kids are curious about the world and follow their curiosity. This is how they develop.

Understanding this natural way of development I allowed my kids to touch a mug full of hot tea when they were young, under my control, just to let them know what hot meant. I did this to avoid more dangerous situations happening in the future which might be caused by the children’s own natural curiosity and their urge to experience and develop. I remember how much my kids where surprised of what they had experienced.

Curiosity opens a window to the world. It encourages us to take a step forward, to explore new areas and gather our own experience, but in the process we also make mistakes. Sometimes adults are tired of their kids’ curiosity especially when their children are constantly asking a lot of questions, or when they are running around bumping into things and getting hurt. Parents very often stop their children by saying “no” in order to protect them. Curiosity is the force that supports kids in their development. No matter how old you are, if you have a childlike interest in the world – in reading books, discovering new cultures, their food and customs – this force pushes you to do these things, and to live your life.

But there is also something that we shouldn’t confuse with curiosity. This is being nosy. This is the search for gossip about others and what is happening in their lives. This is not done to develop ourselves, or to move forward but rather causes disruption to the lives of others. It doesn’t create anything positive, it even has the opposite effect. When we engage ourselves in these interests, we experience emotions which are very difficult and destructive for us, like: envy, jealousy, distrust, and suspicion.

Do you know of anybody who has created something worthwhile which both – respects and develops others by being nosy? Rather – in my opinion – this causes nothing but irritation.

Prying into the affairs of others is very often an escape from people’s own lives by invading the space of others. Is it such a difficult thing to respect other people’s private areas of their lives, of their successes or even their failures or tragedies? Do you like listening to what has happened to other people like your spouse, your partner, your friend, your colleague, while trying to find out about their previous relationships, or their secrets? What happens if they don’t want to share these things with you? Do you feel betrayed or screwed? What has happened to them should probably remain private. Perhaps you should respect their privacy.

Are you aware of the risks caused by your prying? The deeper you go into this, the more difficult it is to pull yourself back out. You may find yourself to getting into hot water.

Is what pushes us in such cases childlike curiosity, which enhances our lives? Or is it something which destroys and complicates relationships between people?

Today’s world gives us an opportunity to monitor people on social media by reading their comments throughout the history of their posts. We can skim through their pictures, and find out who they associate with. We don’t even have to ask them for permission.

This obsession with the past disengages us from living our lives in the present. We should respect what has happened because it has brought us to the present, but it is in the present that life is lived.

So if you want to move toward your success, stop looking back to the past, to what has happened and don’t fill yourself with negative emotions. Tell yourself: “Enough. Now, I am going to pursue my own life.”

Even if you make this change, be aware that sometimes you will look at the Internet and read some gossip, this could pull you back in, but you can resist this by telling yourself: I will stay in the present moment. I won’t be drown back in. And switch the device off.

Or switch on your curiosity – read something about the world, learn a new skill, meet with your friends or play with your kids.

And a challenge for you for next week:

Imagine that your partner has been very busy recently. All the time they are talking on their cellphone and take it everywhere they go. I think you can also imagine this situation with your friend, your kids or other people who are very close to you.

And one day they go out to buy some groceries leaving their phone on the table at home. You know that it will be some time until they are back.

And what do you do? Are you tempted to quickly skim through the contents of their telephone? Just for a moment, just to quickly find out what is going on, or who they are talking to for so many hours a day. What are you doing? Are you a control freak?

Answer a question: Yes or no?

If you look at the phone and you see repeated names, male and female, do you feel better with this information or worse? Are you calmer now or are you even more frustrated than you were at the beginning? Do you feel the urge to search those names on the Internet for more information. Just to have a quick, innocent look.

Answer, please: will you take this next step?

You don’t have to share this with me but be honest to yourself, and make some changes if you’ve  realized something important about yourself.

It is good to meet our friends, sit and talk, laugh and exchange experiences, sharing cheerful moments and sad ones too. With respect to everybody. I hope you have such beautiful talks and you are as curious as a child to create something beautiful from this.

That’s all for today, see you next time.

Bye, bye.

This was 8 Minutes to Success. If I’ve left you wanting more that’s great. It’s much healthier to stay a little hungry rather than eat too much and feel sick. I hope you will listen to my next episode. To avoid missing any I recommend that you sign up for the newsletter on my website www.8minutestosuccess.com and the next episode will be sent to your email straight from the production line. Don’t be afraid I won’t be bringing this out every day. Don’t forget to subscribe. Would also be nice to get some comments from you and if you feel it’s worthy you can share it with your friends.

Take care. Bye, bye.