“Curiosity – The Richness in Life”
A message from Cioffredi & Associates Founder, Billy Cioffredi, PT
I was heading out for work and pressed the electric garage door button. Uh-oh—no response. I tried the light switch—nothing. I did what I knew: confirmed there was no power to the garage, checked the circuit breakers, even tested the GFI outlet. Nothing obvious. Time to call for help.
I reached out to a friend who has been in the residential building business for years and asked if there was anything I might be missing. “I’ll be right down,” he said. I was impressed by his thoroughness and efficiency in analyzing the problem. The culprit turned out to be a breaker—but not one of the breakers labeled “garage.” It was in a new panel we’d added the previous year for the heat pumps. The electrician had apparently moved the garage breakers to the new panel and hadn’t labeled them. I had looked in that panel earlier, but you really had to inspect closely to see that the breaker was tripped.
Later, I was telling my 35-year-old daughter how much I admired my friend’s intense curiosity—his drive to keep digging where I had stopped.
“Dad,” she said, “people can have more curiosity in one area than another. For some, it’s mechanical things. Your curiosity is in anatomy and biology.”
There’s nothing like your daughter to bring the wisdom.
She was right. I’m absolutely driven to discover and understand, as best I can, the fundamental components of my patients’ problems. They’re often multifactorial, with some causes more significant than others. That’s the art within the science of our profession.
Now, at 68—and 40 years into a wonderful marriage that parallels my years in business—I’m realizing one of the main reasons my life has felt so rich: an enduring curiosity about my work. Perhaps most importantly, my profession is fundamentally about helping others.
Wishing you all a curiosity that brings richness to your own life.
Best wishes,
