Many people talk about the benefits of having an open mind. So many things become easier and way smoother. Today, I want to take a different angle and talk about the other side of that same coin. Today, we'll be going over how a closed mind is a fragile mind.

The points I'll be covering are:

• Cutting the flow: a foundation for failure
• Resources dwindle: closed mind, fragile economy
• The well runs dry: possibly too late

Something we've all done

At some point in time, we've all been or done something that is awfully closed minded. We simply refused to hear the other side and didn't want to come face to face with the reality.

This is something that is done to protect our egos. If you are someone who is currently struggling with ego, then this may prove useful for you.

Cutting the flow: a foundation for failure

We've all had those moments with our parents. We ask them a question, they have a bit of a panic, then give a strained answer that has the undercurrent of, "WHERE DID YOU LEARN ABOUT THAT?!" Although this usually comes from a place of good intention, this actually ends up doing more harm than good.

As somebody who grew up in the catholic faith, I have plenty of experience with being told to avoid certain topics or knowledge resources. Some accidental, some intentional, but they still had the same effect.

When I was told not to view those things again, it struck a chord that rung sour. Instead of adding a new note to the song of my life, it took away an entire chord.

It is completely natural and healthy for people, especially little kids, to be curious and ask questions. After all, they know next to nothing about the world.

The best thing to happen for these people is to find their answer and find it to be satisfactory. For someone like me, who is very much naturally inquisitive, I didn't get that luxury.

A closed mind is a fragile mind because it discourages discovery. Closed minded parents would argue that they aren't discouraging discovery, but this just shows that they don't understand what they're talking about.

The brain is incredibly efficient. Your brain is always finding ways to make your knowledge more generally useful, and if it can't it gets rid of it.

What happens when your brain does find a way to make knowledge more useful is by making it into a shortcut.

For example, if a kid learns not to touch a hot stove by touching it when it's hot, he learns not to touch a hot stove. Then, the brain takes that and replaces the word stove with surfaces, thus creating the statement 'don't touch hot surfaces'.

Because of this efficiency, you don't need to be told to not touch a hot pan or the top of a car that's been out in the summer sun in the middle of July. Unfortunately, this efficiency also applies to the negative behaviors and patterns we pick up.

Growing up, I was taught that anything that goes against the catholic church is evil and should be avoided at all costs. This led me to believe that I need to reject anything that doesn't line up with those beliefs.

Having let go of this mentality, I know see just how destructive this kind of conditioning is for young minds. It truly does set you up for failure (more on that later in this post).

When we grow up with strict restrictions, those who set those restrictions have good intentions. However, what is passed down is often not the lesson they hoped for, which then causes problems down the road.

Resources dwindle: closed mind, fragile economy

The worst kind of situation you can find yourself in is one where you're in a boat trying to row up current, but you have no paddle. You have to make do with what you've got, but what you've got left is as good as nothing since, at that point, you've already expended all your other options. 

When I'd face hardships growing up, I was always told to pray on it and god would provide. Well, I did this for ages and guess where it got me?

Because of my upbringing, the resources I had available to me were limited to only what I was raised to believe were appropriate. Only the things that honored god and Jesus were allowed.

Following this, I quickly rolled into a sticky situation. A situation I was told wouldn't happen, so long as I stuck to what I was raised to believe. 

When resources are limited, life in general becomes more challenging. When their isn't enough, you have no other choice but to make do with what is there.

This concept of resources doesn't just apply to physical stuff like food or water. In fact, this concept can be applied even more to mental resources like knowledge and trust.

A closed mind is a fragile mind because of this lack of resources. Over time, you "starve" yourself and are forced into a dire decision.

Either you remain starving with those who raised to accept that starvation, or you break free and climb out of that bucket of crabs.

In theory, this can be perceived as an easy decision. In practice, this is a very scary and daunting decision for someone to make, regardless of circumstance.

First off, you risk losing your social livelihood so you no longer mentally starve. This has the scare of potentially ruining your future because you're know an outcast.

Secondly, you have to rebuild your foundation from scratch. When you're cut off from your previous connections, it can become a lot harder to find those who are willing to help you rebuild.

Ultimately, this closed mindedness leads you down a one-way street to an ultimatum. Either you bite the bullet and rebuild, or you continue your madness within the echo chamber your life is set in.

Both of these choices are not easy to pick, the difference is that one has more immediate impact, while the other one kills you slowly over time. Pick your poison before it picks for you.

The well runs dry: probably too late

When we see those images of starving kids in impoverished countries, we can't help but feel for them. Seeing the struggle really puts into perspective how much harder they have it compared to us. It's the type of thing that makes you wonder, "how did it even get that bad at all?"

The low point of my life was when I got cheated on for the first time. I followed everything I was told to follow, and was told that would prevent infidelity.

So when it actually happened, I was devastated. I didn't even know something could hurt that bad, and I pinched myself just for good measure.

It didn't help that everything around me was telling me there was absolutely nothing that I did wrong. Looking back now, not only do I see that I was right to leave, but that I was wrong to believe that I was completely innocent.

When we close our minds to other perspectives, we effectively are making our lives harder. If we refuse something because it doesn't align with our beliefs, fair enough but you can't justify complaining about it later.

Unfortunately, this is all too common in the modern day where we're conditioned to see too many things as an 'us vs them'. These people don't realize that we aren't at war with each other, yet they treat it like that.

A closed mind is a fragile mind because it is the cause of war. Saying a lack of peaceful common ground is what caused all the biggest wars in history sounds like a stretch, but think about it and you'll quickly see that it's true.

We still see the repercussions of world war 2 today. The words nazi and Hilter are often met with disdain and fear, and rightfully so, but if the Americans didn't tax the Germans so heavily, perhaps the mass genocide wouldn't have happened.

This isn't to say that the Nazis were innocent, far from it actually. This is to say that the Americans aren't innocent in the matter. This is the true danger of a closed mind.

When I look back on my first time getting cheated on, yes, it's a terrible thing that she did and nobody should make excuses for her. However, it only got so bad because there were things that I didn't do my best in.

This isn't me victim blaming myself. If you're a victim of abuse, you absolutely have the right to be angry and harbor resentment. 

What I am saying here is that a closed mind never considers both sides when the perspective of both sides could have prevented the problem in the first place. For something like assault or rape, this kind of understanding isn't necessary. 

My girl cheated on me because there were things I fell short in that were important to her. World war 2 started because the Americans mindlessly overtaxed the Germans into national bankruptcy.

The difference here is that I was able to identify the root cause of how I fell into this issue and addressed it before it got even worse.

When we are raised to be closed minded, the hardest part of changing this is not recognizing that we are closed minded, but taking action to remedy it.

Had I not sought out answers as to why I was cheated on, I would have never learned how to avoid those same type of issues in the future and I would still be a no charisma Christian hoping for my wife to show up sooner or later.

One line that resonates with me on this topic is one Uncle Iroh from avatar says: "It's important to draw your wisdom from many places, otherwise it becomes rigid and stale". Too many people simply have wisdom that is rigid and stale, and they wonder why it's no longer effective.

To obtain wisdom powerful enough to avoid problems like all out war, we need to keep an open mind to perspectives that are different from our own. Only then will people become more resilient.

A closed mind means a fragile ego

Ultimately, a closed mind is proof of a fragile ego controlling someone. Instead of them making all of their decisions themselves, their ego takes over when things get too heated.

They become more worried about their social standing and how others view them compared to being congruent with their own values. Short term, they satisfy their anxiety, but long term, they can end up destroying their relationships with everyone they care about and landing in a rut they can't escape from.

To prevent this from happening, keep your mind open to multiple perspectives. Other people generally aren't out to ruin your life, but if you believe they are, it's only true to you because you see it that way.

- Karl