Why Your Future Depends on the Openness Balance
But be careful not to tip the scales too far — it’ll be your undoing
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Most traits in life are either good or bad.
But this one’s a balancing act — more nuanced.
Get the balance right, and I guarantee you will improve as a person.
But tip the scales too far, and you might risk unravelling your whole personality…
So, what are we balancing?
Before we can strike a balance, we need to understand what we’re balancing — and I won’t waste your time. It’s being:
Open.
Openness to experience, sometimes referred to as intellect, indicates an individual’s inquisitiveness, thoughtfulness, and propensity for intellectually challenging tasks.
If you drive your car via Route A, but your passenger suggests trying Route B, how open to change are you?
When I think of an open-minded person, I think of my Dad.
He’d say:
Sure ! — why not?
Because my Dad is completely accepting of the idea that he might not have the best way.
But someone low in openness might worry that Route B will be slower, or that their knowledge of the roads is being questioned. They’ll be resistant and frustrated by the change in route.
But in life, there’s no use being closed off to new ideas. Believing that your way is correct 100% of the time will lead you nowhere. If you’re not receptive to new knowledge — you’ll be of the same intelligence forever…
And stagnation is early damnation.
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
— William Shakespeare
Someone truly wise knows there’s no limit to the information in the world, but there is a limit to our mind’s capacity.
Our brains contain the knowledge we’ve accrued in our lifetime. The knowledge our ancestors and parents raised us with and our experiences.
If we depend on that knowledge — while ignoring all outside influence — we close ourselves off to the possibility of improving.
Essentially, by staying closed to new information, you put too much weight on the hand you’ve been dealt, and not enough on your strategy to play that hand.
Take a wise man and a fool who’ve both been practising the art of pottery for 5 years.
They’ve developed their techniques but are looking to master the art.
But they approach it in two different ways:
The wise man will seek help by finding a tutor, and asking thousands of questions — he knows others have far more experience and knowledge than he does.
The wise man has leveraged thousands of years of pottery knowledge being passed to the instructor through books, teachers of their own and experience.The fool will reject any advice — thinking his experience is all he needs. The fool has started from scratch.
A wise man may be an atheist — a perfectly reasonable approach to spirituality.
But a wise man would be a fool to reject the possibility of God.
Having belief in your opinion is a beautiful thing. But are you open to the idea that you might be mistaken? What benefit is there to being stuck concretely in one’s ways?
There would be nothing to ponder, nothing to discuss and nothing to think about if one was concrete in all their own beliefs — the reason fools resort to talking about the lives of others, while the wise discuss their beliefs and ideas.
Being able to speak about your ideas with the openness to being wrong, will stimulate the mind and the soul.
It will make you a far more interesting, wise and knowledgeable person.
Spilling too far into openness
You might think, the more of that [openness] the better, but no — that isn’t how nature works. You can undo yourself by being open. People who are open have a hard time catalysing their identity, because they’re so… protean. They shift shapes constantly, they’re interested in everything. It makes it very hard for them to pursue one thing.
We’ve established that being open is crucial to being fair and wise, but it’s important to discuss the risks of going too far — being too open.
Being too open to the ideas of others can be detrimental when you begin to allow that external information to overwrite your own, without applying a level of discernment.
This is something I’ve personally struggled with my whole life — I’ve been too far on the open side. I’ve allowed someone with confidence to overwrite my existing knowledge — only to be shown that I was right all along.
I fell too far into the openness side.
My Dad on the other hand — though open to being wrong — will not fold in the face of information that he doesn’t deem to be feasible. He will never hear some bullshit and let it overwrite his thoughts.
Let’s revisit the road route analogy from earlier.
Your passenger tells you to try out Route B, even though you’re pretty sure Route A is quicker at 3:30 pm since there’s a school zone along B.
The one who has the openness balance wrong would either:
angrily decline, or
accept without thinking.
The one with the correct openness balance would acknowledge that Route B would be better, but there's too much traffic at this time of day and you should stick to Route A.
The solution is to be willing to accept the opinions of others and external information but to apply your filter to it.
Where are you on the scale?
We’ve discussed the balance of openness at length — so it’s time to ask yourself where on the scale you lie.
Are you too closed?
unwilling to change
stuck in your ways
stubborn
Or maybe you’re too open?
blindly accept the opinions of others over your own
low self-confidence and self-esteem
no strong opinions or beliefs
Mark down where you think you are, and start working toward the perfect balance.
You’re aiming for a level of openness where you are willing to accept that you may be wrong, but have the confidence in your logic too.
Don’t be stubborn, but don’t get pushed around either.
You can’t afford either of those outcomes.
Be a strong individual.
Thank you for reading.
I’m just sharing the lessons learned on my path to building my Mental Fortress - an impenetrable and stable mind.
If you found it helpful, that’s great. I figured, why not share it with the world as I crystallise my own ideas.
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Sincerely,
Eren