Be Curious and Nurture the Desire to Know

September 2, 2025

Dreamstime.com

Hello!  How is each and every one?  I am fully aware that I owe all of you an explanation.  Although I somehow intuited in the last post, July 1, that I would be out for a seminar and I asked for your prayers for myself and all the others participating in the seminar, I had remained silent the whole two months until today. Now I feel the urgency to start anew.

The theme of the said seminar was Psychology and Spiritual Life aside from other topics that were equally very enriching and super enlightening. I must confess I was not in tip top shape during each and every session.  I may have been physically present but not completely, mentally and intellectually 100% present.  The spirit is willing but the body is not completely well. 

And then after the seminar I had to focus on other things related to transferring residence from the mid-central to the south. I guess I mentioned it to some persons that I was born to accept, to adapt and to adjust and never to choose.  But now I must admit it is not as easy as in those years past yet it is not to say I want to choose.  I guess I just need to simply verbalize the situation I am in. Having done so, I faced the daily situation accordingly.  It’s been two weeks of settling down, getting into the pace of the day’s schedule, activities and things. And yes, the situation is getting better by the day.

What is amazing is some persons settle for less and resign themselves to situations the roots of which should be resolved than simply accepted and consequently be suffered.

In the homily of the Mass we attended in Sto. Domingo on the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, the priest talked about fear. I guess he was referring to the boulder that obstructed entry to the tomb of Jesus.  He said two ways of overcoming fear wherein Jesus does not seem to be present is to face the problem and act on it because Jesus is truly there and be faithful, live according to your calling, no double life.

And another striking moment was when the choir sang the hymn “I love the Lord” He is filled with compassion, He turned to me on the day that I called.  From the snares of the dark, O Lord save my life, Be my strength.

They are encouraging words that see me through different moments of the day then and now.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.  I trust you are still there and in touch. May we now resume and continue from where we left off. 

Following now is the superhabit of diligence (From SUPERHABITS, The Universal System for a Successful Life by Andrew V. Abela, PH.D., Dean, Busch School of Business, The Catholic University of America, 2024) 

The superhabit of Diligence is not primarily about hard work or willpower.  We often think of Diligence as steady, earnest effort – and indeed that’s how some dictionaries define it.  It’s not primarily about that.  At its root, Diligence is about intense study driven by a love of knowing.  The French philosopher Simone Weil wrote that willpower “has practically no place in study” because “intelligence can only be led by desire… the joy of learning is in running.”  The desire to know things is the secret to growing in the superhabit of Diligence.

See what’s going on here.  The superhabits that help us manage our desires (which include all the ones we’ve seen so far) are not about using our willpower to force our desires to be what we think they should be, or to force ourselves to do things we don’t desire to do.  Rather, they are about gently guiding our desires into more productive directions and carefully modifying our actions in small and repeated ways.  Every little question that Carly asked, every task or project she volunteered to help out with, guided and fueled her desire to learn everything she could about the business of real estate brokerage.  Her interest led to her success, which made her become highly valuable to the firm – and eventually to be offered steadily larger opportunities.

This approach to cultivating Diligence by leveraging the desire to know things doesn’t just apply to college graduates like Carly.

Diligence is about this desire to know things.  Once you learn to channel it, it is very powerful.  Studies show that Diligence is associated with better GPA, high school graduation rates and standardized test scores.

How do you channel the desire to know things?  The first and most important thing is to recognize and avoid the ways in which you might be wasting this valuable desire, A common unproductive use of our desire to know things is to satisfy that desire with unimportant information.  For example, how do you handle the temptation to spend two and a half hours each day on social media, as the average person does today? 

Is it such a bad idea to relax by looking at unimportant things online?  Not necessarily.  But do keep reminding yourself:  the desire to know things – that you use up as you browse social media – is precious fuel that could be driving your growth in Diligence, and helping you achieve your goals.  (Note:  when it’s time to relax, there’s a superhabit for that too, called “Eutrapelia,” the habit of playing well, which we’ll see in Chapter 8.)

A second unproductive use of the desire to know things is trying to learn things that are well beyond your current ability.  While it’s good to push outside your comfort zone, and to stretch yourself, it’s possible to push too far.  When your abilities are up to a new challenge, you experience the stimulating, absorbing condition called flow, where you feel fully absorbed and energized, even if you’re being stretched. But when the challenge goes well beyond your current abilities, you experience anxiety instead.  For example, in one of many such studies, music students were tracked while they prepared for a recital.  When their skill level matched the piece of music they were performing, they experienced flow; when their skill fell short, they had performance anxiety.

A third way to waste the priceless desire to know things is to use it up on false or unreliable information. 

Your desires are energy.  Your emotions cause motion – they move you forward, and fuel your activity and achievements.  The first way to grow in the superhabit of Diligence is to avoid wasting the valuable energy of the desire to know on what is unimportant, or beyond your current capacity – or just downright silly.

Another way to grow in Diligence is to recognize that superhabits tend to be contagious.  (This should not be surprising, given that human desire itself seems to be contagious – as my Busch School colleague Professor Luke Burgis shows in his book (Wanting:  The Power of Mimetic Desire in everyday Life.) You can catch a superhabit, at least to some extent, just by spending time with other people who have that superhabit.  When you are with people who are diligent, you are more likely to become diligent yourself.  One study found that college students who were randomly assigned roommates who has a history of studying a lot ended up studying more themselves, and achieving higher GPAs, than students whose assigned roommate did not study as much.

We’ve saved the hardest question for last.  What if you just don’t care?  What if you’re in a job where you’re Just. Not. Interested. In any aspect of your work, and it’s not an option to find another job in an area that is more interesting to you?  Can you create the desire to know things?  The good news here is that the answer is an unqualified yes.

Extensive research on encouraging student learning shows that interest in a particular area can be developed, even when you have little or no interest to start with.  The same research also shows that interest can be developed at any age, not just when you’re young.  Importantly, the process of cultivating interest is intrinsically rewarding, satisfying in itself, so that it becomes its own motivation to continue to increase the desire to know things.

How can you create the interest you need to increase your desire to know things and cultivate the superhabit of Diligence?  Here are three researched-based ideas to increase your own interest or help others in increasing theirs:

1.      Choice:  Be selective about particular aspects of the subject in which you want to cultivate interest.  Let’s say that you’re studying machine learning.  If you can choose which problems you’d like to engage with, and which data sets you’d like to mine, that can help strengthen your interest. 

2.      Personalization:  Focus on how what you’re learning could be relevant and useful to you.  For example, consider how you can use machine learning in your own life and work.

3.      Group Work:  Work with others on a project related to the area in which you’re trying to develop an interest, where the group is given plenty of latitude on how to solve it.  When together you have the freedom to take any approach you like, this can also encourage interest as you explore different approaches.

Helping yourself, and others, to get more interested in something is the key to growing in the superhabit of Diligence.  More generally, growing in superhabits means that you are coaxing your desires gently in the direction you want them to go.  Through little changes repeated over time, rather than trying to force them with your willpower.

Perhaps at this point it seems a little too good to be true.  Is it really the case that I don’t have to apply much willpower, and just by making small changes, repeated over time, I can develop multiple superpowers that will make me happier, healthier, and more effective?  If it’s that easy, and effective, how come no one seems to have heard about this before?

I am sure you will experience the same things I am experiencing going through these superhabits one by one and reflecting on each one as it is presented.  You and I have these superhabits in different degrees but not very distinctly because you and I have not truly focused our attention on each one diligently with interest and love.  Hence we realize the importance of this superhabit of diligence with the good news that it can increase and be truly marked in our daily life and work.  Don’t you feel challenged by the idea of cultivating each one of the superhabits?  You and I need to love the thing of interest to you and me.  With love goes diligence.  Love is the force behind the desire to pursue that thing and persevere in doing so step by step.  Let’s dwell more into this superhabit in the presence of the Lord in prayer and listen to what He has to tell us. He will lead us on into what is good for us.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky