Have you let bits of you die?

RUDYARD KIPLING’S “ I Keep Six Honest Serving Men”  contrasts how, as adults, we seem to have lost our capacity for wonder and curiosity compared to young children.

The poem laments how we let our “Six Honest Serving Men” (What, Why, When, How, Where, and Who) rest during work and mealtimes. We are too busy.

Too busy for curiosity and imagination. Really?! What a lost opportunity.

Contrast this to children who ask “millions” of questions from the moment they wake, giving flight to their sense of wonder and curiosity, never allowing the Six Honest Serving Men to rest.

—

I KEEP six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,

I send them east and west;

But after they have worked for me,

I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,

For I am busy then,

As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views;

I know a person small—

She keeps ten million serving-men,

Who get no rest at all!

She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,

From the second she opens her eyes—

One million Hows, two million Wheres,

And seven million Whys!

 

With this in mind, perhaps we can help rekindle your imagination and curiosity. It is core to the experiential inquiry work we do with leaders and teams.

 

📸 Joe Yates, Instagram: josephyates_