Keen

“These are a bit pricey,” she observes, passing the glass vase of tulip bulbs over the scanner. Surprised by her comment, a myriad of thoughts fly through my brain in rapid succession.  She works here, doesn’t she?  Shouldn’t she be supporting a customer’s purchase, no matter her personal opinion?  Maybe these are more expensive than those buried in a plastic pot full of dirt, but I get to keep the vase, don’t I?  It’s an interesting shape and a nice size. Do I really owe this woman a justification for my buying decision?  Isn’t value ultimately determined by the individual contemplating the purchase? 

As I’m thinking, I’m searching her face for the hint of judgment, trying to supplant my own mug with a pleasantly neutral expression.  I say nothing at all.

The truth is, I find the presentation of these flowers-to-be interesting. What compels me to hand over some of my hard-earned cash for this transparent vessel containing five sprouting bulbs resting in water is the opportunity to watch the flowering process.  What happens underground is made visible to me. It’s a new perspective into blooming.  I want to see how it works.

We’re all curious about some things, but thankfully we’re not all curious about the same things.  We’d be living in a pretty one-dimensional world full of a lot of helpless people, and far more unsolved problems than we have today if that were the case.  I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the amateur mechanic who knows his way around an engine so well he doesn’t even need to be in front of my car to talk me through jumping the battery, or the dentist so well-versed in the characteristics and inherent differences of gold and porcelain crowns, he guides me to the best choice for my tooth without regard for lining his own pockets. Where would we be if Thomas Edison needed more than 4 hours of sleep at night or Madame Curie preferred time in the kitchen cooking Monsieur Curie’s dinner to time in the lab?  Without individuals driven to sate intense curiosity, the world doesn’t evolve.

It’s interesting, then, how all at once we can dismiss the curiosities of another because they don’t align with our own, and at the same time feel compelled to weigh-in on subjects we know next to nothing about.

There’s a lot of pressure to be the first responder to a request for information, but the question I’m asking myself these days is whether I’m always the best responder.  It’s impossible to be expert about everything, and in a world that’s becoming more and more about specialization, we need to become connectors to survive, and be open to many perspectives to thrive. It takes time to connect the dots, assemble our thoughts and formulate our position.

I doubt I’ll be making the next breakthrough in horticulture watching both ends of a tulip plant develop. But what I take away from my point of sale experience is we don’t owe responses to every individual opining on our choices. There is power in knowing I’m quite capable of delivering a response in the moment, but I’m also just as confident offering none.

We can’t allow others to shame us into being less than ourselves. We get to be curious. Curiosity begets passion. How else do we bloom?