Today is July 26 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you choose fear over understanding?” The French Physicist Marie Curie once wrote: “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
People who successfully navigate the chaos intentionally choose understanding as a function over fear. Curie had to overcome barriers that were placed in her way because she was a woman, in both her native and her adoptive country.
As she addressed challenges in both her personal and professional life Curie maintained a life-long commitment to understanding. As a child Curie took after her father, Wladyslaw, a math and physics instructor.
A top student in her secondary school, Curie could not attend the men-only University of Warsaw. She instead continued her education in Warsaw's "floating university," a set of underground, informal classes held in secret. Both Curie and her sister Bronya dreamed of going abroad to earn an official degree, but they lacked the financial resources to pay for more schooling. Undeterred, Curie worked out a deal with her sister.
She would work to support Bronya while she was in school and Bronya would return the favor after she completed her studies. For roughly five years, Curie worked as a tutor and a governess. She used her spare time to study, reading about physics, chemistry and math.
In 1891, Curie finally made her way to Paris where she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris. She threw herself into her studies, but this dedication had a personal cost.
With little money, Curie survived on buttered bread and tea, and her health sometimes suffered because of her poor diet. Curie completed her master's degree in physics in 1893 and earned another degree in mathematics the following year. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes.
She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
Curie choose understanding over fear. Do you?