Look all the way left. Then look all the way right. What do you think you will find? Since you aren’t looking left again, you won’t find a safe way to cross the street. In this scenario, you won’t find safety at all. What you will find is one of the most dangerous things a human can possess—a closed mind.
Factoid: The person with a closed mind is a fearful and self-righteous person in hiding.
A closed minded person is unable to see any other perspective and will lash out if one is presented to them. Closed minds create wars and hate and pain and intolerance in ourselves, in our lives, in our relationships, and definitely in our beautiful world.
If you want to find an abundance of closed minds, simply look ALL the way left and then ALL the way right. Find any emotionally and politically charged topic. “Your religion is bad…how you love is not okay…your medical choices are my business…your political views say everything about you…” Of course, I could go on and on.
I’m guessing you want more peace in your life and in your world, just like I do, so it is imperative that we start opening our minds and engaging in perspective-taking. Why does that person think that way? Why is that important to them? Are they afraid for their children? What do they envision happening? Are they afraid that they’ll get their rights taken away? Do they live paycheck to paycheck? Are they glued to the news? If we can open our minds just a little bit more, we can begin to see that we all have motives for the things that we deeply care about. We find gold, in the form of perspective.
To be honest, it’s not that difficult to have an awareness of what’s going on. In many ways, we’re being controlled by others who have closed minds and agendas, and we—as a society—simply must get out of the business of letting others dictate how we feel…about anything. We must start thinking and feeling for ourselves. We have to quit hiding behind another’s opinion—namely the news and social media—and making their opinion our truth. We must begin to hear the loudest voice in the room and wonder why they have to scream so loud. Instead of latching onto their rage, we need to heal our own wounds so that we don’t get pulled into their rage and their fear. And we can avoid falling prey to their strongarm tactics to join them in their quest to go all the way left. Or all the way right.
Here is the language of an open mind: I don’t have to understand everything that is important to you, to keep my mind open to the fact that your life is not mine. You have had different experiences and you have different fears and pain and love and a whole lifetime that has created your personal belief system. I don’t have to understand any of that to still have love and compassion for you, another human being who is also doing their best. And I don’t have to try and make you validate and see my life through your lens to still be open to your viewpoint, to still be secure in my world. It isn’t necessary and it isn’t possible.
What we can all do is be curious about the ways that we think and believe differently from each other. Not hate each other person due to differing perspectives. Not try and convince each other to change so that we believe the same things. To stay open to the fact that we all internalize life through our own filter system. But also, to be mindful that there are many harmful closed minds out there trying to gain more power. We most-likely can’t strongarm and change them, any more than we want them to try and do that with us. Be we can set boundaries, detach and release those are being divisive and creating harm. In the end, we can simply give them to the Universe, who is a butt-ton more powerful than we are. We can let them be.
We live in a polarized world that is created by closed minds. It’s unfortunate and it’s painful, and it’s just where we’re at. The way out is to get out of the extremes with open minds. We have an opportunity for a better future. You don’t have to think like I do, but you and I can still be kind to each other. We can have an awareness that we don’t know everything about another person’s journey, and that all of life is perception.
Open minds are beautiful. Truly. They will lead us all the way out of our closed-minded polarized world. They will silence the extremes. They will show us the way to peace and give us back our humanity. So that someday, we can look all the way left. And then all the way right. And what we will find is absolutely nothing.
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