“ You mustn’ t let what you can’ t do keep you from doing what you can.”
One day when young Albert was in bed, too sick to go to school, his father attempted to cheer him up with a gift: a compass.
Albert was mesmerized. No matter how he twisted and turned the wayfinding device, he couldn’ t trick it. The compass’ s needle always found its way to point north.
Years later, Albert identified this as the allimportant moment his curiosity came to life. His eyes were opened to invisible forces he knew nothing about— forces that were all around him, even in his bedroom! If the magnetic force existed, what other forces might be out there in the universe?
Albert considered curiosity, not traditional education, to be responsible for his success; it’ s what led him to learn so much and stumble into success.
He is not unique in this respect.
Bill Gates once said he did not consider himself to be the smartest person in the room, but he was constantly curious and counted it as his most important trait. He attributed his success to having a high threshold for confusion and an ability to keep studying a new subject until he was not confused anymore.
To paraphrase Gates, for most adults, the minute they start getting confused, they’ re like“ Oh, this isn’ t for me. I’ m not good at this. I must not belong.” But confusion and curiosity keep Gates going, and that’ s how he changed the world.
Leonardo da Vinci, too, was an extremely curious person, doodling in his notebooks about the woodpecker’ s tongue, wondering why it was so extremely long. He never cracked the case but died curious about it.
Centuries later, a fascinating discovery proved that he was onto something: The woodpecker’ s“ too long” tongue functions as a sort of airbag for its brain. The tongue protects the brain from the pecking forces that, while drilling holes in trees, are strong enough to kill the woodpecker many times over.
“ You mustn’ t let what you can’ t do keep you from doing what you can.”
On paper it made no sense for da Vinci to be fussing about some random bird while he had the Mona Lisa to paint or The Vitruvian Man to design. But it was because these kinds of questions haunted him that he was so successful, not in spite of it.
Let me ask you: Are you curious? What are you curious about? What interests you? And what’ s your threshold for confusion when you are seeking to unlock that curiosity?
If you don’ t have a ready answer, spend time exploring and piquing your interest! Don’ t worry if it doesn’ t seem perfectly connected
19