‘It doesn’t matter what you say … ‘

The other day, I read this comment - ‘it doesn’t matter what you say’ … in regard to a discussion I was having. When someone says that - it is really the effective end of any further discussion. 

I thought about it a little - and it now occurs to me, that this is where many people are stuck - in their unwillingness to ‘hear’ and ‘think about’ what other people have to say. There’s a lot of this going on in the world today. Sometimes it evens ends in extremism!

It’s so easy to become ‘stuck’ in our ideologies; our belief systems, and find ourselves in a place where we won’t entertain other ideas/thoughts/possibilities, even if they have merit. This is the space where critical thinking dies.

For myself, I try to always keep an open mind. I want to be ripe and ready to entertain an idea that might be be either completely novel to me - or, an even better one than I already hold myself. This is how we improve! Every now and then, on rare occasions, I have come across this attitude on the mat - my response is always the same - I walk away and make my offerings to those whose minds remain open.