It’s important to stay open-minded in this life. This approach can help you reduce your immediate emotional reactions to anything outside of your comfort zone and instead seek to learn. When people suggest ‘keeping an open mind,’ it’s often to do with accepting people or their interests, or being thoroughly tolerant to the point where it can become all you care about.
Sometimes, that can be unhealthy in its own right. So, what does a real open-mind require, and how can we mean it, rather than forcing ourselves to abide by whatever definitions we have given it? Furthermore, why is keeping an open mind so important, and how can it affect our daily lives? With the advice in this post, you’ll no doubt see that keeping an open mind is a fundamental principle of good health, and can influence it dramatically.
That being said, we need to first understand what an open mind requires, and how we can avoid falling into several pitfalls about it. After all, sometimes it can harm us. If someone is harassing you at work, then ‘keeping an open mind’ and staying empathetic to their emotional health can prevent you from defending yourself as appropriate and reporting this immediately. You can see where the problems lie. With the following conversation however, we’ll see just how deep this rabbit hole goes:
Defend & Consider Your Positions
It’s important to know where you’re starting from if you hope to be open minded. Why do you want to be open-minded? Do you believe you’re not acting that way already? For instance, it might be that a heavily religious upbringing makes it hard for you to accept certain people or stances, but is that getting in the way of living a healthy life? Do those tenets of your beliefs get stronger or weaker when you stick by them so stringently? Could it be that just taking the time to reconsider your opinions and if you have reviewed them in adulthood will help you move towards something more open?
We’re not here to suggest what those views should be, and this is just one specific example. However, if you do this work, you are doing more than at least 95% of other people who will stringently try to stick to what they know, rather than what they could know. And this has an added benefit, an open mind can actually help you feel more secure in defending the positions you wouldn’t want to subvert. That takes a strong person, and so it’s a good thing you are.
Always Believe You Have Something To Learn
Always believe you have something to learn, and that someone has something they could teach you. We often dismiss people too easily for a whole host of reasons, and that’s not necessarily a flaw. We have to do this in order to survive and assess who is conducive to our survival, and who isn’t. It’s part of the social structure of our brains. That being said, it can be nice to know that you might have something to share with someone else, and that they may have something to share with you.
This belief is the fundamental requirement for conversations that help you learn more, or learn otherwise. If you can have these, you will naturally become more open-minded. It could be that you are somewhat unsure of medical products because you have a somewhat dated view of them, until you visit Harvest for more information to see just what options are available. That’s a great place to start.
Be Slow To Judge & React
Remember that you don’t have to accept values to tolerate them or even understand them. It’s fine if you believe a political idea is wrong, but you can likely see how people come to that conclusion if you dig a little. Are they pushing those beliefs because they are evil and stupid? Or is it because they have a different frame of reference? If people thought that way, 90% of Twitter arguments would dissolve overnight, and conversations would be had instead. If being open-minded doesn’t lead to those results, what’s the point in the first place?
Understand Your Real Values
Understand what values are important to you. This helps you feel more confident in learning more. Do you care about family? Freedom? Art? Do you think healthcare should be free, or do you believe in other contested political topics? Don’t feel shame for them, you likely came to that conclusion in good faith. So, how can you challenge yourself on them and debate with yourself? Holding yourself to a high standard will ultimately help you arrive at the best result.
With this advice, we hope you can understand just how keeping an open mind is helpful to mental health, and also to the progression of your social relationships and life itself.
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