It's all a Matter of Perspective
Becoming Open Minded
It’s all a Matter of Perspective
This newsletter is about:
How we see things.
How we learn things.
What we know
What we don’t
Open Mindedness
Biases
Ego
Trees in the Woods
The thoughts we instinctively have when we first see, read, or hear about something. I am bad for taking the opposite side of a viewpoint right off the bat. Always questioning things I know nothing about.
I think I know about things, but I’m wrong most of the time. I also have Imposter Syndrome at times because I am wrong.
I’m a contrarian, so my instinct is to look at the other side of an argument.
But - there are things I do know about, and that seems to make me feel good for a minute. You know?
Most of the time we can identify the thing right away. Other times, depending on the viewers perspective, we’ll search our memory banks for something familiar.
But if we have never seen the thing before and it is new to us - then we shouldn’t really have any feelings about it. What does it do, what it’s called, how is it used, is good or not, and so on.
If it is unknown to us, then shouldn’t we be open to learning about the thing? We can’t know everything.
Even the stuff we thought we knew to be correct has become wrong with new research over time:
A baby aspirin a day is good for your heart.
You’ll never become a millionaire just from a job.
Carrots improve vision.
We only use 10% of our brains.
You could kill someone if you dropped a penny on them from the top of the Empire State Building.
The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure that can be seen from the Moon.
Dinosaurs were scaly
The earth is flat.
Ostriches bury their heads in the sand.
Wait 30 minutes before you go in the pool after eating.
Napoleon was very short.
Shaving your hair causes it to grow back thicker.
Bats are blind.
There are 10 types of biases.
Columbus discovered America.
Albert Einstein failed math in school.
Diamonds are made from highly pressurized coal.
You can't start a sentence with a conjunction.
An apple a day will keep the Doctor away.
Henry Ford invented the automobile.
This newsletter is shit.
In the 1960s, Warren Buffett joked of taking advice from old investors. “They know too many things that are no longer true,” he said.
🧠 Open Mindedness
We really don’t know much about most things. Yet we seem to always have an opinion. I’ve been trying to be openminded about things I see on the internet, and hear from other people. The first we’ve heard about a thing sticks in our mind as the fact. Or a base line starting point for forming an opinion.
Here is how to become more openminded from a WikiHow article:
Biases
We are all influenced by biases, even though we think what we know is logical and rational.
Ego
Ego. We tell ourselves little stories (fibs) to confirm our thoughts as correct to make us feel better. We all have egos.
“Ego blocks us from the beauty and history in the world. It stands in the way.” — Ryan Holiday
To have confidence is to have faith in your own abilities and believe in yourself, but the ego is something else entirely. Unlike confidence, the ego operates out of self-interest. It seeks approval, accolades and validation at all costs in order to be seen as “right”.
Here’s how to keep your ego in check (link - Forbes article):
Stop Making It All About You - Curb your desire to be seen as right all while proving others wrong.
Ditch Your Defensive Mindset
Curb Self-Righteous Actions and Judgment
Drive for Results and Learning - If all else fails and things do not go as planned, it doesn’t matter who is at fault.
🌳 Trees in a Woods:
Above
Under
Front
Below
Bottom
Each pic above is a different view or perspective of trees in a woods. Each is a picture of trees. But they are different. From a different viewpoint. But they are all pictures of trees.
I try to put myself in the other person’s shoes to see an idea from their point of view. I am trying hard to be more openminded about the world and new ideas. What do you think? Please comment.