If I added a trait to the Scout Law, it would be Curious.
I understand why they didn’t include it. Curiosity is chaotic. Being curious brings doubt, brings unintended growth, brings challenges to authority.
Being curious is chaotic, but it’s essentially human. The best achievements of humankind have been made by curious individuals and groups.
It’s challenging to teach curiosity, and it’s challenging to teach in a curiosity-forward environment. There is some evidence that traditional education methods stifle creativity so that by late elementary school, curiosity is depressed. (It’s called the Fourth Grade Slump.)
But our one great hope for the future is to produce more humans intent on following their curiosity to new solutions, new ideas, new advancements.
I prize, honor, and feed my curiosity every day. It’s essential to who I am, and it drives my growth and professional success. I am not the same person that I was at 32, or 21, or 10; more than perhaps any other factor, it has been my curiosity that has shaped me.
Curiosity is chaotic. But it is beautiful, and it is essential.