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Today's
quotation:
I'd
always thought of myself as an open-minded person. I had no
patience
with anyone who put down other kids because of their race,
religion, or
sexuality. But that's just one kind of open-mindedness.
There's another kind,
too, the kind that's willing to see people for who they
really are and admit
when you were wrong about them. That's the part I still need
to work on.
Kelley Armstrong
The Calling
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Today's
Meditation:
It's so easy to judge others based simply upon what we
see and what we witness them say and do. This is
especially true in this day and age when we're encouraged
to judge entertainers even when we have no musical
training, or vote people out of a house or off an island
based on nothing more than our own personal likes or
dislikes. The more we judge, though, the more our
minds close, and the less new information we're willing to
entertain when we deal with other people in the
future. We judge people based on appearance all the
time, and that's not helpful to anyone, really.
An open mind allows us to entertain new notions. It
can help us to learn more about a situation when everyone
around us has already made up their minds. An open
mind allows us to be fair about what we see and hear, for
only with an open mind can we realize that there may be
four or five or six possible explanations for a person's
words or actions,
not just the one that immediately leaps into our minds
because of our preconceived notions, biases, and
prejudices.
I want to have an open mind because I want to be fair, and
I want to be fair with others because I want people to be
fair with me. I've said things that were wrong
because I was hurting inside, not because I was trying to
be mean, and I hope that someone else will realize
that. I've done things that were wrong because of
poor decision-making skills, not out of malice, and I need
to remember that other people make similar mistakes in
their lives. And it's up to me to keep learning from
other people rather than judging them-- I can learn about
the effects of fear from this "rude" person
who's really just scared, and then I can pass those
lessons on to others.
Our open minds can help to bring balance and peace to the
world, and they can keep us from judging others harshly
when no judgment is warranted. And they can help us
to learn and grow and to cast out the frustration we have
with others in favor of compassion for the trials and
difficulties that they're facing.
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