“We’ve put off a lot until later,” we said. “What if later is now?”
And with that, we both quit our jobs. His plan was to write a book. My plan was to get a plan.
After all those years of doing what I thought others expected of me, of what my talents “required” of me, I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself, given the opportunity.
Cancer gave me an opportunity. In 2014, a stressful spring of various and amorphous abdominal discomforts gave way to the sudden need for a hysterectomy that revealed early stage—but still blessedly contained—endometrial cancer. I spent six weeks that summer recovering and returned to work in late July, grateful.
I dodged a bullet, I thought. I’m back!
And then: Wait. Not everyone is so lucky. Good fortune deserves something more than the same old same old.
I saw the opportunity, and I took it. I left the nonprofit career I’d been cultivating for decades.
In January 2015, the experimentation began. If I was going to get out of the comfort of my career and my known skill set, then I was going to get way out.
I joined the good-natured crowds at Rehoboth Beach in a polar bear plunge. Air temperature 37 degrees, water temperature the same. There were warm blankets and hot cocoa waiting for me on the beach with my supportive but incredulous husband.
I modeled for a painter and a photographer. One experience was considerably more intimate than the other. Both provided ample time for reflection. I learned to sit still with my thoughts.
I took a MOOC (a “Massive Open Online Course”) on statistical modeling that would have been helpful 20 years earlier. My calculus was rusty, but it was good to sweep the cobwebs from that corner of my brain.
I went on quilting retreats with my mom. I traveled to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
As a newly minted member of the 2014 Leadership Arlington class, I gave a short talk about curiosity for my Leadership Arlington peers—and my world tilted. I’d been looking for my “new thing.” Suddenly I realized I already had it.
At that point, I’d spent most of my career with NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) and in 2003 had been tapped to become COO. For more than 10 years, I oversaw programs, governance and nearly 1,000 affiliates. It was essentially my job to know everything. But I’d come to realize I was better at the work if I didn’t. I was better if I came at it with curiosity instead.
I was slow to get there. I liked being a font of wisdom and institutional knowledge, invaluable. A gifted teammate who provided organizational training would often nudge me to do better.
“Get curious,” she’d say, and I would roll my eyes. But I was determined to be her best student. I leaned into her assignments and crafted admittedly more engaging workshops, drafted indisputably more effective communications. I discovered it felt good to not be all-knowing. It was a relief.
Impressed, I made myself a student of curiosity. There was theory and research—a small but growing body of work illuminating all that curiosity could offer in education and learning, in the workplace, in our relationships. I was hooked.
When I left NAMI at the end of 2014 (suddenly, to the shock of my colleagues, one of whom said she’d always figured I’d just die there), I thought I would consult. I thought maybe I could build that business around curiosity, and that’s what I set out to do.
But in October 2015, when I gave that Leadership Arlington talk, I learned that a new community radio station was launching in Arlington. They were looking for people who wanted to produce radio shows.
I’d never done radio. I didn’t know a thing about audio recording or editing or any of that stuff. If you’d asked me to make a list of 100 things I thought I might do in life, radio would never have been on that list.
Still, I went to an open house, signed up for training and put together a pitch for a show about curiosity. “Curiosity Radio” I called it, a working title.
In March 2016 the call came: “You’re in! When do you want to start?”
I wasn’t done training. For my pitch, I’d made a list of 25 ideas to see if the concept had legs, but I didn’t have any guests lined up. “Don’t let me chicken out,” I said. “I’ll start in six weeks.”
That was eight and a half years ago. The show—now called Choose to Be Curious—focuses on curiosity itself. We talk about research and theory, but mostly it’s conversations about how curiosity shows up in work and life. I toggle between guest researchers who study the brain mechanisms of curiosity and people who’ve never really thought about curiosity until I ask. We’ve explored curiosity in everything from creativity to engineering, gender identity, humor, adolescence, data visualization, linguistic justice and news literacy.
I’ve learned that each of us has what I call “curiosity practices”—all sorts of ways that we bring curiosity into our lives. Maybe we read widely, or always ask just one more question. Maybe we set intentions for the day, or wander without intent. Maybe we travel, or meditate, or take courses online. What seems to matter is that we embrace opportunities, however modest, to keep expanding our worlds.
The show is my way of encouraging all of us, given a choice, to choose curiosity, in ways large and small. I honestly think our lives depend on it. Democracy, too.
Lynn Borton’s radio show, Choose to Be Curious, got its start in May 2016 on Arlington Independent Media’s WERA 96.7 FM. Now syndicated through Pacifica Radio Network, the show airs on 20 stations around the country and can be found on major podcast platforms. Borton lives with her husband, David Kolker, in Radnor/Fort Myer Heights.