Holding Curiosity in All We Do

First published on May 5, 2017

A few weeks ago I was outside the Royal Festival Hall, standing on the terrace overlooking the River Thames, when I was approached by two Police Officers. I was meeting a client at the Festival Hall, and was on the terrace doing some exercises I do to gain focus before I coach someone. They raise my presence, and bring up the quality of my work. There are two, one I designed and one I borrowed, and essentially they are both mindfulness exercises of a kind. For one I have my eyes closed, and for the other I have my eyes open. 

As I was part way through the second exercise, the Police Officers came up to me, and asked what I was up to. I explained. They were very friendly, and to my eyes and ears seemed genuinely curious. They had seen me from below and said 'I wonder what he's up to. If he's still up there when we get there, we'll ask him.' After I explained, one said 'Maybe we could all do with more of that.' It was about ten days after the terrorist attacks on Westminster Bridge, and I was pleased to get an opportunity to speak to, be friendly to and generally support the Police Officers who do so much amazing work around the country. And of course it's interacting with strangers, which as I've written about before, is almost always strangely rewarding.

A few days later I discussed this with a couple of friends. One of whom is training to join the police. Both pretty much straight away said ,'They probably thought you were about to jump off or start a terrorist attack.'

As they said this, I instantly felt sad. I was disappointed at the idea that the two men weren't just curious about what was going on, and being friendly interacting with a stranger. That they thought me a risk. And at first, I thought - wow, how cynical of my friends, to jump to that conclusion. They weren't there, they didn't see how calm, polite and friendly the officers were. 

And it is true that we choose whether to be positive or negative, cynical or hopeful. Positive and hopeful gives us a more rewarding, enjoyable, wholehearted life, and helps others have this too. And so I will choose to believe for the most part that they were asking just because they were curious. 

But perhaps the greater lesson here is that the Police Officers were doing both. They were checking on the person standing quietly staring across the Thames, at a time of high security alert, as part of their job. And they were curious, calm, polite and friendly as they did it. And that is something we should all strive to be.