Open-mindedness

I think that I am a pretty open-minded person. I enjoy hearing other peoples views on a variety of subjects. Hearing about what others think and not just being interested in your own views help you to learn about the world. You get different perspectives and in many situations youre outlook may change. Life is a growing process. How else can you grow than by branching out, thinking new thoughts, looking at the world differently. Don't get me wrong, I do not believe that you always have to change your ideals to match what the other person is telling you.

When I was in college I studied abroad for a year. One of my teachers constantly used a certain phrase. I had never heard it before but do not think that he made it up. It was, "Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out." I thought it was funny but never really thought about the meaning to deeply. In a different class, the students were asked to keep a book of quotes or incidents that had meaning to them. These quotes could be funny, meaningful, uplifting - basically anything that you wanted to write down and remember. I think almost every single person that had those two classes with me wrote down that phrase.

The other day for some reason this quote came to me. I thought about it long and hard and I realized that it is very true. Many people pride themselves on being open-minded. Some people are easily swayed by the opinions and happenings of others. They sometimes think that acting like others, be it the popular crowd, the wild crowd, celebrities, will make them happy. This is not so. What makes a person happy is being themselves. I am not saying that if you are naturally a grumpy person you should walk around being nasty to other people with a scowl on your face. That won't make you happy either. But it is trying to be the best person you can be. Being grumpy will neither help you nor the people around you, but you don't need to become the most cheerful person to please anyone else. You just need to find the things in life that you enjoy and give you meaning.

So yes, I am open-minded. I enjoy hearing other peoples views, ideas, goals in life. I take each one with a grain of salt. I have learnt many things this way. Some of them make me think about things that I hadn't thought of before. Some of them are different takes on what I had already believed. Some of them I agree with and some of them I don't. I am up to having discussions about these views. I am not up to having arguments about the differences. I cannot lose myself to please someone else. I cannot be so open-minded "that my brains fall out."