The clouds cover the expanse of the sky. Sitting outside, helping my friend with her homework, I didn't know I would remember these clouds. My friend had asked me for help on a math problem. I knew the formula needed to solve the problem like it was my own name. I had memorized it so well for many different tests and thought teaching her how to solve this problem would be simple. Instead, she asked me a question I had never considered.
"Why do we need to know this formula?" she asked. "What is it meant for?" I glanced at her, confused. My first thought was, "Because you need it for the test." But I knew that wasn't a decent answer.
When she left, I pondered the question. What was the formula meant for? In all the times I had written it, memorized it, used it, I had never once wondered why it really existed. I looked up at the sky. The clouds were everywhere, engulfing the world. I knew what clouds were and why they existed, not because I sought those answers myself, but because I needed to know them for a science test. That's when I realized that almost everything I knew was because I was forced to learn it, not because I wanted to learn it.
Many teenagers are so focused on getting that A+ that they forget to value their curiosity. We have almost become robots, collecting up information necessary for that upcoming test and sweeping away what is unneeded. And when that test is over, it all falls out, never to be thought about unless it is needed again for another test.
But humans wonder. We look outside and questio, "Why is the sky blue?", and seek answers to soothe that raging curiosity within our minds. Our greatest inventors, who made the most profound discoveries, had seen something they were curious about and turned that curiosity into something incredible. Even Albert Einstein once said, "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."
So, curiosity didn't kill the cat. Curiosity saved the cat.