I personally feel that in today's world people are becoming and less open minded and becoming more emotionally attached to their opinions. They feel that only their idea can be right and that it must be the truth because it is what they believe to be the truth. Due to this, common discussions turn into arguments, more feelings are hurt, people lose friendships, and it limits the ability to learn. So what is the secret to keeping an open mind. It is very simple and almost everyone can do it.
Read more
That 's right the key to keeping an open mind is to simply read more books. Reading allows you a chance to get inside someone's head, to see the world from their perspective. They may bring up ideas that you personally disagree with, but try to be open to the new idea and not immediately object to it. This is easier to do when you read, since you are exposed to how the author thinks. Also the more you read, the more you learn and the better you'll be at forming educated opinions and discussing them. Now unfortunately the solution does not just become as simple as if you read a bunch of books you will automatically become more open minded. The world does not work like that. You have to pick the right books read.
Choosing the Best Book to Help ?????????
Most people when they read have a favorite kind of book, whether its a specific genre, character trait, plot line, etc. The key to becoming more open minded is you have to select a book that has ideas in it that are different than your own. This can be in any genre as long as the ideas are different. Try to read something that your interested in, so that you can enjoy the book and get through it, but make sure the characters/ideas are different than what you're used to. To get the absolute best results, chose a book that addresses controversial topics, or that challenges a wide held belief in society. Malcolm Gladwell for example loves to write about these topics and he is good giving evidence to back his claim.
The Final Steps
So after you have chosen your book, sit down and read it, and when you come across something that you disagree with, try to refrain from immediately thinking its wrong and wait and see why that character/author feels the way they do. If once you've heard the reasoning behind it and you still don't agree that is perfectly acceptable too. The idea behind being open minded is not to simply agree with everything anyone says. It is to actually consider the possibility that they may be right and if you hear their argument and still don't agree still respect their mind set and agree to disagree. That may sound like a waste of time to some since dismissing their claim from the start comes to the same outcome, but perhaps at some point you may actually find out that you agree with the other person. So read as much as you can, enjoy it, and try to respect other peoples opinions. If there is one thing Malcolm Gladwell's books have taught me, it is that some things that appear to be obvious have more to them than you originally thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment