Let’s Put on Our Adult Slacks and Lean into our Curiosity

When I was a kid I couldn’t imagine why pants needed more than one fastener. I vowed I’d never own another pair that did. I’m so glad I learned better because almost all my slacks have multiple clasps. Let’s not shut out the possibility that we have things to learn from each other. Instead let’s lean into our curiosity and enjoy a richer and deeper life experience.

When I was in middle school and later in high school I performed with a private choral group that did concerts around my local community. I have a lot of very fond memories from the experience. It was my first experience singing with a choir and so there were a lot of other firsts that went along with the territory. One of those new experiences was choir uniforms.

This particular choral group didn’t go overboard or anything. We the boys were given a tie and navy-colored slacks. The slacks were about as generic as they get, I have come to realize now, but back in my early teen years, those slacks were my very first pair that had more than one clasp to connect to put on the pants. It baffled me, honestly. Why would pants ever need more than one button or hook? The pair as I recall just had an inner button and then a main button. But that inner button was my nemesis on those mornings when I had to get ready for performances which we did a lot with this particular choir especially while we were doing the Christmas season circuit around holiday parties and events.

I still recall one particular occasion where I got so frustrated I declared to my Mom that I would never again buy a pair of slacks that had more than one fastener. She was incredibly kind about it and I know she was trying to show as much compassion as she could, but she did give me a pearl of wisdom back then that I still think about today. “Well, then you probably won’t ever own a nice pair of pants,” she said.

Little did I know just how right she was. And today, I wear slacks practically every day that have two or three or sometimes even four clasps or buttons. I learned that there actually is a value to having more than one fastener because multiple clasps make pants lay flatter and help them conform more to our body shape. Now I think back on this experience practically every day because I rarely wear anything other than slacks around the house.

I think there’s maybe a more significant lesson we can gl;ean from this saga about pant clasps. How often in life do we resort to assuming that our way of thinking is the correct way when we face new information or situations? When we hear something on the news do we get curious if the information doesn’t quite jive with our current point of view or do we explain it away, change the station or even make fun of those who we disagree with?

Ralph Waldo Emerson was right I think when he said, “In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.” Good think he didn’t use the Universal “everyone” because we know that goes without saying about women. But seriously, isn’t that a lovely approach to life? Anytime anybody or anything contradicts our personal view, we have a choice to make. We can automatically start coming up with arguments as to why it’s wrong, or we can get curious and see if there is even some morsels of truth that we can gain that could enrich our experience and our pointers of view.

I’m so glad that I have give up on my pledge to never buy a pair of pants that has more than one fastener because, as my Mom so correctly said all those years ago, I wouldn’t be able to wear practically any nice pants. And the same is true with life: let’s not shut out the possibility that there may be things we can learn from each other. Diversity of opinions, life experiences, cultures, and ways of doing things can all enrich our lives in tremendous ways and can lead us to getting a much richer and deeper understanding of the world and its people. So let’s lean into our curiosity and put on multi-fastened pants.