I've always been curious.

About life. About people, places, how things work. I don't remember a version of me that wasn't.

When I was young, the little girl in me would to take days off school to go to work with my dad. He's a builder, a hero in my eyes and a building site was the best classroom I ever sat in. The tools. How things went together. Why you did it in that order and not another. I wanted to know all of it, and I still do. I'm still on that site in my head, trying to absorb everything.

Here's what that taught me. To be interesting, be interested.

We spend so much energy trying to be the interesting one in the room. The best story. The sharpest take. But the people I remember are the ones who asked me a question and actually wanted the answer. They leaned in. They made me feel like the most interesting person there, and I walked away thinking they were fascinating.

Curiosity is generous. It says you matter enough for me to want to know more.

I also think it's becoming rare.

Somewhere along the way a lot of us decided the goal was to get comfortable. Find the routine, the job, the people, the opinions, and settle in. Secure is the destination. And once we get there, we stop asking questions.

You can see it in friendships. We pick our people at some point and the circle closes. Same faces. Same conversations. Same version of each other. No room for anyone new, and no room for who we might become around someone different.

Comfort feels like safety. It's also where curiosity goes to sleep.

It's the thing I most want to give my girls. Not a particular answer, just the habit of asking. To walk into a room and wonder about it. To ask how it works, who someone is, what's over there. I'd rather they were interested than impressive.

So stay curious. About the work, the world, the stranger sitting next to you. Let your circle keep growing.

The day you stop wanting to know more is the day you start getting smaller.

Ready?

DX