“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble; it’s what you know for sure that ain’t so.” — Mark Twain
When most people talk about politics or some other issue that makes them emotional, they tend to think that they are always right. Let me ask you a question: have you ever met anyone who was always right about any issue? Chances are the answer is “no” which means that there are a whole lot of people in this world who are saying things that aren’t true.
This is to be expected because the great majority of people are guilty of taking sides without thinking about them beforehand. If you’ve ever met someone who strongly supports a sports team solely because of geographic location or because their friends and family supports that team, you know what I’m talking about.
And because they’re not thinking objectively, they have the tendency to focus on only the positive perceptions of their beliefs and only the negative perceptions of the beliefs they’re opposing. And not surprisingly, they ignore everything negative about their beliefs and everything positive about opposing beliefs.
Gain a better understanding of the people you disagree with
In order to get along with diverse groups of people who you don’t always agree with, you need the ability to view things from their perspectives. Think about some of the colleagues in your life and imagine what life must be like from their point of view. Think about how they were raised and the experiences they must have gone through before meeting you.
Even though they may have beliefs that differ from your own sometimes, they have those beliefs for a reason. If you find out why they have those beliefs and analyze them objectively and intelligently, you’ll be less likely to experience negative emotions around them.
Everyone plays a part in this world
The world isn’t always as it seems. With the limited time and experiences that we’re capable of having, we can’t view things from all angles and always have definite answers. Seldom is anything in the world always good or always bad. There are always gray areas in the middle that are usually more truthful than either side.
“Pure reason avoids extremes, and requires one to be wise in moderation.” — Moliere
The world wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if everyone had the same beliefs. Civilization would be behind by at least a thousand years if everyone viewed the world from the same perspectives. We need people who view the world differently because they’ll think of innovations that we cannot.
It’s been said that the average person has between 12,000 to 50,000 thoughts per day and most of them remain unchanged from one day to the next. But when you keep your mind receptive to ideas different from your own, you give yourself an opportunity to learn what you never thought could be true.
