Maybe It’s My Attitude

Minds are like parachutes – they only function when open … 

Thomas Dewar

DO YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF closed down to new ideas — or, worse yet, acting as if you know it all and require no further information?

I do.

It may be that there is no more insidious habit than that of close-mindedness … of refusing to even TRY to see things differently. How do you feel when someone won’t listen to you and your ideas?

That is exactly how others feel when you do the same.

What is the cure for this relationship-wrecking malady?

When I was in grade school, I adopted an attitude that poisoned my education for years: I figured everything one could know was already known — that the textbooks and teachers were absolutely correct, that there was nothing left to discover.

I don’t know how I arrived at that conclusion. But it doomed me to mediocrity.

When I read “theory” or “theorem” behind a principle, I assumed it really meant “fact.”

In order to begin opening up, to learn to listen to others and accept that there are other possibilities … I need only develop a modicum of humility — humility for myself and humility for my position as a member of humankind.

I don’t know it all … and neither do you

The apparent truth (and this could be grossly inaccurate) is that we are spinning through space on a giant chunk of rock — every second of every day journeying through a position in the vastness of space where we have never, ever been before. The reality of our situation makes any ride at any amusement park seem tame by comparison.

Anything could happen next. Absolutely anything.

It may be that the reason we busy ourselves with knowing it all is that we are afraid to admit this fundamental truth. I call it “existential anxiety.” We all know, innately, that we know very little (if anything at all) … that our situation in life is precarious, at best, and we ware TERRIFIED to admit it.

So we hang on to the only thread we have: a cocksure determination that, indeed, we know everything … we do not require any outside information. The book is closed.

I am god.