I woke up Tuesday morning to the news coverage of the bombings in Brussels. As I watched the pictures, I felt myself contracting. I was scared about the state of the world. I wanted to curl up on my couch and watch Jane Austen movies. I didn’t want to go out into what felt like a scary and unpredictable world.  But this wasn’t an option.

I believe that curiosity is the secret sauce that makes life juicy and enticing. I have found that when people get stuck, when they just can’t see any alternative to their problem, or when life seems unbelievably hard, one of the things that can magnify the problem is the lack of curiosity.

Spring in Texas can be hard to detect. The temperature is no help. Eighty-degree days in February are common. We always seem to have plenty of sunshine, so that’s not how we know it’s spring.

Many of us carry the cultural message that pushing down our feelings—especially painful ones—is the best way to function in life:  shake it off; suck it up; carry on; one foot in front of the other, and so on.  But this just isn’t true. Pushing down our hurt and pain doesn’t make it go away. It just delays dealing with it until another day. And if we delay for too long, not only do we continue to suffer emotionally, but our relationships, our health, our very being begin to pay the price.

I really don’t like Valentine’s Day—there I said it. (I feel the same way about football, but that’s a topic for another day.) It seems to me to be yet another way we must prove our love for someone by showering them with gifts—overpriced flowers, impossible-to-get dinner reservations, etc.