I asked Santa for a giant book this year for Christmas. It’s an 800 page mammoth filled with years of blogs by Seth Godin called, “What does it sound like when you change your mind.” Santa may or may not have sent it via Fedex. It may be sitting in my house taunting me.
I suddenly understand what it’s like for kids to see those presents taunting them under the tree.
It arrived in a fascinating box covered in French script and what appears to be the program for the Solvay Conference in 1927. I simply cannot wait to unwrap it. (I’m sure I will share more when I do.) Now, if you know me at all, topics in relativistic physics, focused on electrons and photons, are not exactly my thing. But that picture of Solvay 1927. . . look at that picture!
Do you see what I see? That’s Einstein in the middle. He’s leading the charge of 29 world-renowned physicists (17 of which, were or became Nobel Prize winners). There’s only one woman, Marie Curie. She was the first woman to win a Noble Peace Prize, and the first woman to win two. She was there, on the front row.
She was a respected voice in the conversation.
I can only imagine what it was like for a woman scientist in those days. I suspect she had to conquer a lot of inner fear and insecurity. This quote was surely written in relation to understanding science. But I think the understanding grew for her, internally.
Nothing in life is to be feared.
It is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
~ Marie Curie
There is no doubt in my mind that throughout her personal journey of becoming a world-changing scientist and Noble Peace Prize winner, she faced some giants. Both internally and externally. I imagine this quote as a note she scribbled in the front page of her journal, as a reminder. It was to her, as it can be to us, a constant reminder.
The unknown is the scariest. . . simply because it is unknown.
What’s your biggest fear of the unknown right now?
What if you decided to redirect your energy, from fear, into an earnest desire to understand more? What if you let up on trying to convince and control, and instead, sought to understand the other person’s perspective just a little more?
You’d start to fear a little less, and connect so much more.
There is still so much to be understood.
Now is the time.
to more love,
Crystal
