A window stuck open is just as bad as a window stuck shut. Either way, you’ve lost its use. Ditto for a mind. – Dr Tayo Adeyemi
What is the purpose of a window? Keep out the weather when it’s bad, let it in when it’s good? It has to work to do that, right? What about your mind? Is it stuck or working?
What does that mean?
A window that is stuck open isn’t so much a window as it is a hole in the wall. Since the purpose of a window is usually to allow vision to the outside and light to the inside, that still works.
However, what separates a hole in the wall from a window is the ability to open and close, allowing in a breeze on a nice day and keeping out the weather on a less nice day. A hole can’t keep out nasty weather.
A window which is stuck shut only allows light to pass through. Never will a pleasant breeze pass through it. In that, we are missing one of the more useful features of a window.
Similarly, a mind, implies the quote, should be able to move around and not be fixed on one position or the other. I take that to mean a mind shouldn’t be made up in advance, and should be able to willing to open it to a pleasant breeze, and shut out the nasty weather, as appropriate.
Why is properly functioning mind important?
Can open, worms everywhere, right? How do we define a properly functioning mind? We can start with eliminating the obvious, like those minds suffering from various physical or chemical problems. But where do we go from there?
I would include such traits as the willingness to consider other ideas and to examine other view points. I would separate those who have beliefs from those who do not, as that has caused far too many people pain, anguish, and worse over the centuries.
The question is are you open to new ideas? Do you try new methods, or even invent them? Do you try crazy things because you’ve already tried all the usual ways and not had the results you desired? To me, these are all traits of a mind that is properly functioning.
If you’ve never tried something new, always done the exact same thing, every time, without fail and (most importantly) never examined any possibility of change, you’ve probably got a ‘stuck’ brain, whether that be in the open or closed position.
Where can I apply this in my life?
I imagine we’re all a little closed minded in certain areas of our lives, and perhaps a bit too open minded in others. I’ve yet to meet someone I thought was perfectly level across every area in their mind. They may have had a different opinion, but that’s what life is about, isn’t it?
Being able to debate, to give and take, to adapt as new facts come to light, that is the point of having full use of your mind. There are many different functions of the mind, but if it can’t adapt, you will have difficulty in life, right?
Can you think of any recent arguments where you weren’t necessarily listening as well as you should? How can you properly use your mind if you aren’t listening and trying to understand? If all you are doing is preparing your rebuttal, your mind is stuck on offense, right?
What about times that might not have been as heated, but where you still did not really listen to what they were saying, or give any credence to their thoughts. That’s a mind which is stuck shut and refusing to open to even the gentlest breeze.
In the opposite direction are those who are far too easily influenced. Whatever they heard someone say is their new mantra. If it was on the news, it must be true. If someone in a lab coat said so, they couldn’t possibly be lying to them, right?
That’s a mind which is stuck open. While occasionally a nice breeze comes through, so do insects, animals, rain, snow, and harsh winds. That’s no way to operate a mind, is it? Stuck open isn’t any better than stuck closed, which was the whole point of the quote.
Most of us live somewhere between these extremes. However, as I mentioned before, we all have areas where we’re a little more open and others where we’re a little closer to closed. The point of examining your life is to try to notice in which situations you are which, and how to counter those urges.
What can you do to help open a stuck-shut mind? What can you do to close a stuck-open mind? If you’re trying to change another person, good luck. You only really have control over your own mind. Or at least I hope you do, right? What can you do to help yourself?
And before you get too stuck on backing hard science and bashing people of faith, it might help to understand that the author of the quote is a Medical Doctor, as well as a pastor. Don’t let your mind be stuck shut.
From: Twitter, @DrTayo
confirmed at : his own site (plus searching didn’t turn up any rivals)
Photo by marc falardeau
