The bravest are the curious.

R&B singer Eric Benet once sang, on the title track of his 1996 release True to Myself,

“It’s so very hard to know which way to go.

A lie can be the gospel truth if eloquently told.”

Have you ever wondered if when people see you they are seeing the real you? Is not the deepest fear that we will be misunderstood or maybe that we’ll be found out? I’ve often said to myself that it’s crazy that there are some things about myself I’m ashamed to talk about to myself in a room all by myself. It’s like there is an authentic you that stands flat footed on the ground like everybody else and if your kids, co-workers, subordinates, spouses, students, superiors, etc. knew that person…

There was a TedTalk I showed my class today titled, “A simple way to break a bad habit” by psychiatrist Judson Brewer who studies mindfulness and addiction. In short, mindfulness is stopping while engaged in said habit to acknowledge how you feel, what you’re experiencing, where the habit is taking you. Brewer discussed research that supports how the cognitive functioning of the brain is silenced when you’re stressed. Consequently…the dumb decisions abound in states of crisis or gross deprivation. Sometimes it’s not even that the decisions are dumb but rather uninhibited.

We learn to survive off instincts and this primal reaction seems to drive us down pathways where the instinctive protection leads to obsessions that can destroy. The obsessions become unchecked habits. But interrupting them is all about being curious, according to Brewer. We’ve gotta want to investigate our bad habits or our habits in general. My students nodded unanimously today when I said, “Do we even always know what a bad habit is?”

In my book, The 6ixth Man: 12 Lessons I’ve Learned from NOT Playing Basketball, I may have unknowingly spoken to the reality of Dr. Brewer’s “curious mindfulness” in saying,

“When we’re driven to examine ourselves truthfully and intimately, there is humility and triumph. You discover your most glaring flaws but reveal harmful pretenses.”

The bad habit is not just smoking per se. The habit worth breaking is the routine of subjecting oneself to something that if investigated easily might be revealed as a foul-smelling, chemically corrosive experience. (I mean I’m not judging people who like to get their “chief” on. These were the findings of research conducted with mindfulness therapy.)

In the end, I personally have a God filter that used to be pretty regimented and religious. I used to “not do” based on the list of “do nots.” But for me, Brewer’s talk resonated because life is full of a divinely invitational moments where clear direction is not prescribed. You have to ask the tough “why” questions and accept what it might disclose. Makes sense. People criticize other people’s bad habits but curiosity about one’s bad habits likely leads to truth I would think. Maybe when we do bad it’s really just because there’s too much cupcake in us. Real men and women ain’t afraid to question their habits.