Last week, I had lunch with my mentor. He tweeted one thing in our conversation, “we need to do what you do not like”. I was wondering on the way to the office why he said so.
I have just started working for another company after running my own small company at contract base. I would say the system and structure the company has are very different from the one I created. Working in such very different environment was honestly painful. However I believed such pain can be insightful for me and I would learn something I can apply to my company. I decided to continue working earnestly.
One day on my way to pick up my prior client whom our company refused to work with, I was not so positive to talk with him again. I was reluctant but decided to meet him.
Then suddenly I realized. I felt even it was enlightening. To see things right, I need to do the things I do not like. I explain why this is so important and have strong power to improve our life.
There are so many things going on in your life. The things include chances. Most people who cannot realize the chances because they are blind, do not know the wisdom of how to realize the chance in front of you. Having the sense to realize something is called open minded. Realizing a chance requires a sense.
If you go to a sparkmarket, merchandise has a price tag. The price tag makes it easy to decide whether to buy or not. However, the merchandise in front of you does not have a price tag indicating the benefit you can get. Because maximizing the merchandise benefit is really depends on you and the price tag of the benefit varies from person to person.
A book may bring you a benefit of $1MM, however if you do not read it, you cannot get anything. The book does not have the tag of $1MM. The price tag of the book is only $20 instead of $1M. Even if you read the book but just thinking about how to criticize the book, you cannot transfer the new knowledge into your action and outcome will be negative because you took time to read it and made the knowledge in vain. (That is why I stop to recommend certain books to someone.) Reading a book and doing the same thing the book says will bring you happiness. However people do not do that including me. Now we understand we need to be open minded to realize the chance happening in front of you. It is not necessary to be a book. Every moment, you can realize something and can apply it to your life. I understand so far this principle, open minded will work to grasp a chance.
Now how to be open minded? Being open minded means realizing your blind spot as well. You cannot see blind spots, that is why it is called blind spot. Minimizing the blind spot will be the same with open minded. Does it make sense? When you learn how to drive, you learn there are blind spots around the car you drive which is very true. You learned how to minimize the blind spot by turning your head, which is wisdom.
What is your blind spot in your daily life? Those are something you are not seeing or it could be something you are not trying to see. If you step in a restroom and if there is a shit sprush in the toilet bowl, what do you do. I know people tend to try to ignore the shit and leave it as it is. I have been cleaning your shit. I do not mind it at all but I can see that is something you are trying not to see.
Whatever your philosophy, I can say one thing, you are not open minded. There are tons of stupid reasons you will create. However you decided not to see the thing, decided not do it because you do not like it. Then you decided to be blind.
How can you minimize the blind spot? The blind spot is something you are avoiding. We tend to stick on a certain behavior. Then you will minimize the sense of realizing chance, closed mind or having blind spots.
Do something you are not trying to do in your daily life. Then you now understand to be open minded, you need to do something you do not want to do. Do you like to wipe the someones’ shit on a toilet before or after you used it? Do you like to change the diaper of a baby? Do it. I am sure you realize something new if you do it happily.
Get up at 5 am before the alarm goes off. Your sense of finding chance will increase. Just do it.
If you see something as it is without any bias, it means you are open minded. Our background, behavior, experience can be our bias. How can you be open minded? Do something you were avoiding.