I remember as a child, being told by my mother, ‘curiosity killed the cat’, probably after I’d asked the umpteenth why. As children, we want to know more, find out about things, understand what’s going on. We ask our questions, explore things in innocence, without judgement.

And we are frequently shut down or told off, or told it’s not important or relevant. I’m sure we have all heard that frustrating answer to ‘Why?’ ‘Because I said so.’

Being curious originally meant being someone who cared (same root as curator). It is driven by a desire to extend our knowledge, our awareness, and it has no intrinsic judgement in it.

That desire in us is health-giving. It is how we maintain the plasticity of our brain and stimulate and extend our thinking. It also enables us to make more informed choices through having greater awareness, and offsets the likelihood of us having ignorant prejudices.

And of course, it’s often fun to follow through on our curiosity, discovering new and different ideas, things, relationships.

Without curiosity, we would have no inventions or innovations, we would stagnate as human beings.

So did it kill the cat? I doubt it and I am sure it is unlikely to kill us. In fact, the opposite: it enlivens our lives and our ideas.

So next time you find yourself saying: ‘I wonder if..’ or ‘I wonder what…’ or ‘I wonder how…’, follow it up – it’s your curiosity shining through.