I’ve been following my intuition all along: What curiosity taught me about not knowing the outcome

Someone asked me what I’m doing with my blog writing and I paused before saying what might be the hardest words for a conventionally educated adult to say: “I don’t know.”

It took years to be able to say that. And longer to say it confidently, even excitedly.

I don’t know where I want my writing to go. I just know I want to do it. Let’s see what happens.

I’m following my curiosity, the way I now realize I always do.

In elementary school, I wrote stories because I wanted to.

In high school, I checked out manga drawing books from the library and taught myself to draw that style for fun.

In middle to high school, I took Spanish classes because I was curious. The state required 2 years of foreign language credit but I did 4 extra years, even opting out of high school senior year English class - I had fulfilled my English credits - to take Spanish 5 and read classical Spanish literature. That just sounded way more interesting than English lit.

Now, as an adult looking back, I can see how that curiosity helped me in unexpected ways.

Did I know as a 12 year old that, in my 20s, I was going to spend a month in Ecuador? I didn’t. I just wanted to learn a language.

Did I know that manga knowledge would be useful as Japanese culture became really popular? Nope, I just thought the stories were cool.

Did I know that my husband and I planning a 3 month long trip to Thailand would become 6 months of travel in Southeast Asia? And that experience would get me featured on 2 different podcasts in 2024? And start another year-long experiment that I may write about next year? I had NO idea.

And did I know I would put those writing skills to use to write online? Definitely not.

Curiosity usually works out.

Even the “failures”, like the 2 mini-businesses I started before my bookkeeping business. One lasted a few months and the other lasted about 1.5 years. But I don’t consider those businesses failures, just finished experiments. They gave me experiences I still use to understand the businesses I help now as a bookkeeper.

The data has convinced this reformed Type A personality - keep following my curiosity. It’s fun and useful. It usually leads to the “or something better” that only the universe can dream up for us.

I wonder where my curiosity takes me in 2025?