O is for Open

Yes, open. I mean that to be painted with a pretty broad brush, too. There are all kinds of reasons to be open, and not the least of which is that I believe it can greatly cut down on anger problems. People who aren’t open to ideas and different ways of life are often times angry people. An open mind is a healthy mind.

Religious people come to mind first. And I’m not talking about your average Sunday church-goer who happens to believe what they believe. I’m speaking of the angry ones who’ll literally de-friend you if your belief system differs from theirs in any way, and who’ll speak angrily about other people because of it. Example: “Nobody’s building a mosque in my Christian nation! Nobody!” We live in the melting pot. It’s literally called that. And we live here by choice, although some folks don’t realize that. If you can’t handle other races, creeds, and religions hanging about, I suggest you pack a bag and look elsewhere for residency.

Closed-minded people are generally not accepting of new ideas and things. They usually have “strong opinions” (read: asshole) on various subjects and would be drawn and quartered before changing their outlooks on them. I’m pretty opinionated myself on certain issues (read: asshole) but I try hard to be an all-around okay guy. Tattoos and body piercing, for example, are not my bag, baby. But I understand that some folks really like them, and I don’t judge them one bit. In fact, a large portion of my friends are tatted and pierced. If my mind wasn’t of the open variety, I could really have missed out on some good times with some good people.

Opening your mind to things greatly expands your idea center, as well. I believe it also increases your self-esteem because you will likely succeed more, due to trying new things. For instance, if more people knew how to do little things like change their oil or an alternator, effectively check for spyware on their computers and remedy them when found, and attempt to fix minor broken things, a lot of money would be saved and people would feel better about themselves. The self-defeating attitude of, “I don’t even touch stuff like that, because I’d probably screw it up worse. I leave things to the experts,” just feeds their already closed-up minds. Try a little something here and there; who knows, you just might surprise yourself.

Open your minds, open your hearts, quit using your brains so much in decision making and let your feelings take over once in a while. It really is freeing. I mean, being intelligent only gets you so far before your feelings must come into play. Look at Hitler and Charles Manson – both men highly intelligent, but they possessed rotten, cruel hearts and so their decision-making wasn’t so great at times. Their agendas were that of close-minded men. Don’t be one of those guys (read: asshole). Open up. There’s some cool stuff out there.