Engage Your Curiosity!

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. It made it a well established Full Stack Web Developer!

We are constantly told not to venture into the abyss. Not to walk into the dark alley ways, not to engage our curiosity because quite frankly, curiosity was the reason for the cat’s demise. However, it is in truth the real fire that burns within us. It is the spark that will light the flame to burn the First ORD… Oh my bad I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie for a bit. But just as Luke Skywalker was willing to feed his curiosity to realize his Jedi Master potential, we should also be willing to take a journey into our curious side.

The little nagging question in your mind

Well I hope I can convince you that the emphasis shouldn’t really be on the specific question nagging you, but the effort made to see that question answered. It was during the late stages of one of my web development bootcamp class in University of Toronto. We had just gone over the basics of server side development with Node.js and Express.js. And as the normal format of the class went we usually had a big exercise at the end to complete. This exercise was one that required us to generate a local server that stored a Star Wars based website. Our task was just to enable the server to receive requests and send a response. The request was a Star Wars character’s name, and the response was some basic character information. One feature of the site was users could add their own characters to the database and post their information. Now here is where the curious cat decided to emerge.

Upon completing the exercise as a class I felt that there was something missing. The question in my mind was, did our code account for the a duplication of new character information? Of course I didn’t want to ask in-front of everyone because if it did account for that then it would have mean’t I wasn’t paying attention, I’d seem dumb. But I know I was paying attention throughout. And so I began a test to see if it was a valid question, while the professor was summing up our session. Well not long after, I discovered it was. Class was over now though. I didn’t know how to solve it fully but I didn’t want to go home with this bothering me. I quickly asked the teaching assistant to spare some of his time. He agreed and guided me through solving it. Asking me critical questions that would eventually point me to the answer. It took 30 minutes to come up with the little piece of code below. However, within these 30 minutes I learned more about the exercise’s nuances than in the entire 3 hours of the class. This was all because I let go to really engage the nagging question in my mind.

The reward of satisfying your curiosity (or at least journeying through it)

Now I know many of you can identify with the feeling of completing your last exam before your summer break. That dopamine rush stemming from the knowledge of the coming days, promising to be filled with warm and bright freedom. That is the exact feeling I had when I had seen my curiosity all the way through to its realizable answer. Although only 30 minutes, the journey there felt a bit frustrating, but what kept pushing me on was the vision of a glorious end. That vision in fact made the feeling of working in the moment and journeying through my curiosity a rewarding feeling on its own. I started to find the value in the little steps forward rather than just gaining the answer on immediate impact. Soon after I started to change my learning. I started to focus less on magically finding an answer to rather valuing the journey on the wave of curiosity. Over the coming weeks, concepts that had initially seemed daunting, suddenly became irresistible challenges. The real reward for continuing to engage with my curiosity was a confidence to take on challenges.

How I continue to engage my curiosity (And how you can too).

Ever since then I try to find many ways I could engage my curiosity, and so far these are the most prominent ones that I have began utilizing.

• The first and foremost habit I utilize is to continue to ask questions. A fear of appearing dumb or seeming annoying is one that prevents people from developing this crucial habit, at least it has been my setback. However, as I’ve grown older and come to realize that such fears should hold no strong ground in terms of dictating my actions. I have been more open to facing them. In fact I have been greeted with quite the opposite feelings from people. People have told me they feel more engaged with me and I seem much more enthusiastic than annoying by asking more questions.

• Reading Voraciously! This is no joke, upon entering the field of web development, I have taken on numerous small-medium challenges, listened to code specific podcasts twice daily, and taken numerous online courses to help me make strides as a Full Stack Web Developer. However what really keeps me pushing through all the stress comes from reading. Not solely reading how-to-code books, but anything and everything including articles and blogs, reddit threads and stack overflow sections, to see how other people continue to traverse this stress-stress-riden minefield of an industry. With something new always waiting to be discovered by you, taking the time to read the comments and articles you always skip helps to define a strong, and healthy curiosity that will keep you fighting.

• Engaging in a completely new activity once a week. Last week I went salsa dancing, This week I’m going rock climbing. Of course you don’t have to do any physical activities. Something new to you may be writing your very first blog article. It doesn’t matter. The act of engaging in new experiences consistently allows you develop an unwavering and non-hesitant mind.

Final Thoughts

Life is a real journey. Of course its not moving at 90km/h but its still steadily moving. And we can easily fall asleep at this slow pace. The only way we can really keep our eyes on the road is to allow our minds to be free. Is to let our journey encompass the accomplishment of engaging with your curiosities.