A couple of weekends ago I heard about a new book called “Theory U,” so I ordered it and have been watching it sit there waiting for me to dive in. (It’s a thick book, so it looks too heavy to bring with me on the bus). The cover has a picture of the letter U and inside the U are the following phrases:
- Open Mind
- Open Heart
- Open Will
Today I thought I’d start on practicing Open Mind, then realized I didn’t really know how to practice that. Doing some quick research, I ran across this site:
How to Exercise an Open Mind – wikiHow.
Simply put, doing unique, random, different, and ridiculous things is a good way to exercise the mind and promote new ways of thinking about the world around us. One hour of increased brain activity via thinking a lot or experiencing new stimuli can make you smarter, more energetic, more creative, more sociable, and more open to new experiences and ways of thinking. Here are some of the endless numbers of activities that can stimulate your brain. The key ingredients are to be open to new experiences, and changes in previous ways of thinking about these experiences.
It’s got a bunch of crazy, fun advice on things to do to stretch your horizons. Towards the end of the page, it says:
Every decision you make in life is based on your belief system. To open your mind, start to list your fundamental beliefs, and for each one ask yourself why you believe it. Then ask yourself whether you could imagine being you if you didn’t exactly believe it any more, but believed something marginally different. Then marginally different from that. Pick a belief a week and work at it. Ask some really good friends what they believe and how they acquired their beliefs. Understand this – your belief system is absolutely unique to you. Your friend’s belief system is unique to them. An open mind is comfortable with differences, and also a variety of lenses to view an issue.
This could take a while, because I believe a lot of things…
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