My therapist asked me to make an acrostic out of the word curiosity.
I didn’t know why it bothered me so much at first.
Maybe because it felt childish.
Maybe because it felt too close.
This is what I wrote:
Courageous
Unique
Rich
Inspired
Organize
Surrender
Invincible
Truth
Yes
I stared at it longer than I expected to.
There’s a saying: curiosity killed the cat.
What they don’t tell you is the cat that died was the one that stayed put.
The cautious one.
The one that knew how to survive, but not how to change.
The old cat never came back.
Instead, something else did. Quieter. A little scarred. More experienced.
I think about that a lot lately—how curiosity doesn’t just open doors, it closes chapters. It kills the part of you that relies on certainty to feel safe. The part that mistakes control for wisdom. The part that restricts itself from wondering because wondering feels like risk.
That nigga had to go.
Not in a violent way. In a necessary way.
Curiosity asked me to stop protecting the version of myself that avoided questions. It asked me to let that part die so something more honest could take its place. Something less impressive. Something more alive.
I didn’t come back the same.
But I came back better equipped.
Curiosity, I’m realizing, isn’t something I’ve always trusted. I like knowing. I like having a read on things. I like being right before I like being open. Curiosity asks me to loosen that grip.
What surprised me was the word surrender sitting right in the middle.
This year, I’m trying to let curiosity lead instead of control. That means courageously letting go of some of the assumptions I move through the world with—about people, about myself, about how things are supposed to go.
There’s a line from Toni Morrison I keep coming back to:
“If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.”
That’s what this feels like.
Not giving up.
Not floating aimlessly.
Just trusting that I don’t have to brace myself for everything.
Curiosity has been showing up for me in small ways. Asking a question instead of making a statement. Pausing before reacting. Saying yes when my instinct is to protect myself with a no.
I’m learning that truth doesn’t always come from digging harder. Sometimes it comes from staying open long enough for it to surface on its own.
When I wrote rich, I wasn’t thinking about money—at least not only. I was thinking about being rich in health. In friendships that feel easy. In family. In time. In a life that’s organized around what actually matters to me, not what looks impressive from the outside.
Invincibility, to me, doesn’t mean nothing can touch you. It means you’re not afraid of what you might find if you look closely.
Curiosity keeps asking me to look.
So this year, I’m practicing it. Awkwardly. Imperfectly. Without a full plan. Letting curiosity soften me where certainty made me rigid.
I don’t know exactly where it’s taking me.
But I’m saying yes anyway.