My life is filled with reassessments, mostly moments in which I learn something, or rethink a past experience, and thereafter am forever changed. A memorable example is my younger son’s suicide unit in middle school, which included the story of a person who resolved to jump off the Golden Gate bridge if no one smiled at him on the walk there; he did so. Since my son shared that with me, I’ve smiled at every stranger I pass on any street, no matter how off-putting, threatening, or irascible. Am I a completely different person than I was before I heard the story? No. Do I so something differently than I did before, almost every day of my life? Yes.

Recently I’ve been reflecting on why I was so slow to notice some truths about our world, truths I now embrace years, even decades, after first being exposed to them. One example is breastfeeding. From childhood through to my own pregnancy I thought little about it. While pregnant for the first time in 1992, I started reading about it, and concluded that it was probably better for the baby if I could do it for a while, though I had no intention of giving up my career. I ended up breast-feeding both children for six months, though I started supplementing at two weeks.

During that time, I was exposed to other people, both in person and through reading, who advocated extended breast-feeding periods of two to four years, and I dismissed them out-of-hand. After all, this was not at option for me financially, and they were all different from me, quirky, or hippie-ish, granola types. I’m struck by both my penchant for stereotyping and my complete lack of curiosity as to why so many people took this position. Now I know that extended breast feeding is common in groups of humans who live more naturally, and that it provides for them extended immunity, superior nutrition, a healthy gut microbiome, and even more attractive faces.

I could have improved the health of everyone in my family had I paid attention to leading-edge nutrition science earlier, though I would have had to seek it out. I can use the excuse of not having the time and not being in the circles in which the emerging story first circulated, which was primarily among the wealthy. While these excuses explain why I missed it, they do not absolve me. Now I know many persons who sought the information and found it years ago, so I could have, too.

As a younger person, I demonstrated more curiosity about things that don’t matter. I’ve met people who have pet insects, create sculptures from found objects, build their own cellos, geocache, or send their toy animals on vacation, requesting pictures from the toys’ hosts. In each case I had enough curiosity to learn details about the activity, although I was not inspired to partake.

The big question is, what am I ignoring right now that could make my life matter more? Most days I don’t seem to have the time to figure that out.