One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received came from my Masters of Law in Alternative Dispute Resolution: “Replace judgement with curiosity.” This is something children are naturally good at. They are constantly exploring the world around them with awe and wonder, trying to understand why things are, and how they work. When you’re a blank slate, it is easy to remain curious.
As time goes on however, our experiences shape us. Our brains are good at looking for patterns in an attempt to become ever more efficient. These patterns become shortcuts for us to reach conclusions about the world in which we live. We see things that look familiar and draw from our past experiences to help explain them. The upside of this is that we are able to reach conclusions quicker. The downside is that some of those conclusions may be incorrect judgments that impact our understanding of what really happened.
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