Tracey Rissik

I was going through emails, filing, deleting, re-reading – and I came across one about Ashley Kurek and his new book. What really struck me was the following quote, which I have heard before but hadn’t known to whom it was attributed:

“Your mind is like a parachute, it works much better when it’s open”

I’ve always considered myself fairly open-minded… you know, seeing the other persons point of view, wanting to learn new things – but in fact it’s only since I started actively working on expanding my mind and consciousness about my place in the world that I realised that to be truly open-minded means to just accept people and things as they are, without judgement. And you know what? It’s not as easy as I thought! We are so conditioned to react to things! If someone criticises us, we’re nasty back – without considering that their criticism says more about them than about us.

Another recent email had the most brilliant passage taken from Epictetus’s “Art of Living”:

Let the quality of your deeds speak on your behalf. We can’t control the impressions others form about us, and the effort to do so only debases our character. So, if anyone should tell you that a particular person has spoken critically of you, don’t bother with excuses or defenses. Just smile and reply, “I guess that person doesn’t know about all my other faults. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have mentioned only these.”

To me, THAT is open-mindedness!

Here’s to learning & tolerance in our society !

Tracey