Most of us know the saying: in order to be interesting, be interested
When I ask you: what excites you in life? Do you have a clear answer?
Not everyone does.
We spend a lot of our time on media, activities, and people, but do they make us happy?
Do we feel good about the way we spend our time?
Are the topics we talk most about on a daily basis, topics that put a smile on our faces?
Not always.
Energy and passion. When are you showing both?
The more you find topics that energize you like board games, starting a collection, or gardening, the less power your smartphone will have over you.
The more topics are screaming for your name, the more your phone’s desperate plea for your attention will subside.
Another important effect of having something exciting to think about is that your conversations will change.
We love to share our passions, hobbies, and interests with one another.
We don’t like to keep these to ourselves.
So the more intention and direction your conversations have, the less you occupy yourself with using your smartphone mindlessly.
The opposite of living a dynamic life is a static life.
And with dynamic, I don’t mean necessarily being out and about and busy.
What I mean is that you have at least occasional novel conversations.
Conversations about topics you know both little and a lot about.
What is required is curiosity and mindfulness.
In order to notice things, you need to be looking more around you.
You need to be more mindful about what’s happening around you.
Aside from your own interests, look at what other people’s interests are.
What are they doing, what are they talking about so much?
Sometimes a passion can be infectious, I notice that when a good friend likes a particular movie, song, or activity, I start to like it as well.
Not always of course, but at least a certain level of interest in that subject grows in me.
Many times I like to take on that activity as well, just to get a feeling of why this is so exciting to the person!
Personally, I like to ask questions about why the person likes it, what is it about that topic that makes the person light up with a big smile on their face.
Great conversations start happening when you show this level of curiosity.
We often ask questions about how work is going, or what someone’s opinion is about the corona vaccine or elections for example.
But what about more deep personal questions aside from their interests?
Rarely do we ask one another if we are happy or if we are coping well with this pandemic for example.
When you show curiosity about their interests, passions, and feelings, you tend to have conversations that are more meaningful, helpful, and educational.
So be more mindful about your passions and about creating passions.
Plus, get curious about other people’s passions.
Again, in order to become interesting, be interested.
Be a person who can talk about all sorts of topics and who is open to diving into new worlds that others love to explore.