Thursday, August 28, 2014

Calendar Books by Allen James - Daily Reading - "The Journey: A Calendar Book"





"Keep and open mind" (James, 2012).

Henry Bergson, a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century, stated, “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend” Keeping an open mind seems to be one of the most tasks we encounter in today's world. Being open to everyone and everything which crosses our paths, allowing ourselves to embrace different possibilities, opportunities, people, views, suggestions and interests turns out to be something most just don't WANT to deal with.
In such a diverse world, we must practice being unprejudiced, without stubbornness and flexible at all times.

Although difficult, I attempt to practice this in every situation, and it can be fun to practice. Trying to understand someone’s point of view, even if we disagree or don’t like the person very much, can change and free our mind in a way we would have never expected.  Certainly I'm not claiming to have mastered this skill, but I do see great improvement; it makes me feel powerful having the ability to change my way of thinking and not to get stuck in a mindset which only frustrates, angers. or causes me to choose to feel helpless.

It doesn’t mean I believe or accept everything, but I do listen, observe, feel, and tr0y to comprehend every situation on my path.

Here are a several ways to keep an open mind and how to benefit:


- Comprehension
Try to understand, sympathize and make sense of someone else's story, opinion or response. Learn to see things from his or her point of view. Keep in mind the history, education, childhood, upbringing and life circumstances of the other person.  We don’t always need an answer or a solution, but it will help us find peace with ourselves and others.

- Black or white
There are times we are convinced we are 100 percent correct and someone else is not. Keep an open mind, considering we might be wrong after all, even if we think we are not. We may have overlooked something, not know all the details; life is not always black or white.

- Interpretation
How do we come across to people? We may be positive we're right, gentle, sincere, clear and tactful, but this doesn’t always mean others perceive or interpret us the same . Listen to people.

- Information
Be open to all information. Be interested in new, old, odd, less obvious insights. Read different books, magazines and blogs. We mustn't limit ourselves. Learn to love to learn new things and not base our opinions on the judgement of someone else.  Be blank, open, unprejudiced to everything we read. At the same time we don’t need to be naive or believe everything. Just be interested, observe different angles, learn from it and leave it open for discussion. Never think we know, because we don’t. The moment we think we know something for sure, we are limiting ourselves.
Start today and practice the examples above in the following situations:
- Standing in line of the supermarket
- In traffic
- In waiting rooms
- Calling a help desk
- At the doctor’s
- talking with colleagues.
- When you are impatient.

- Challenges
Try new ways of challenging. Be open to other possibilities and opportunities. When we step out of our comfort zones we are able to discover and try different a myriad of new experiences, expand our horizons. We will never know what beautiful things are hidden around the corner which may change and upgrade our lives without doing so.

- Relationships
We are all different human beings even if we think we have met our soul mates. In a relationship disagreements are inevitable, but the key is how we go about it.  There is no use in letting our ego speak in the middle of a (verbal) fight. It simply doesn’t work. Be calm and don’t be tempted to argue. Sometimes silence is golden. Save healthy discussion for a time when we are both in quiet and peaceful waters.  We must always consider the emotional state of being of our partner. Maybe we want to talk about stuff but our partner might be in another zone worrying or thinking about issues, family, children, friends, work or tasks. We both might be in another zone. Give each other room to breath.  Consider our partner might be tired, frustrated, stressed out, helpless, hopeless or scared.
Keep an open mind, especially when we are tired or stressed out ourselves.

Be patient.
Don’t expect.
Be lighthearted and easygoing.
Discover the beauty and power of keeping an open mind. It will change and make life easier and more interesting!

“We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode.” ~ John Cleese 

Keep an open mind...and....always...keep looking up.   : )  AJ 

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