The BENEFITS of Being Closed-Minded

I was a subscriber to Berkeley Repertory Theatre and happened to run into its director. Michael Leibert. I asked if he wouldn’t mind a bit of feedback. He said, “Yes, I would mind.”

I was shocked. I thought, "He doesn’t have to accept it but he could at least listen to see if it was worthy. After all, open-mindedness avoids our becoming stale, it facilitates our growing, and even makes us better liked because we’ve reacted well to people’s ideas.

But I’ve come to realize that closedmindedness has benefits. I describe them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Career Issues I've Changed My Mind About

Somehow, we’ve come to prize people who stick to their guns. But as Longfellow wrote, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Not wanting too little a mind, I have tried to remain opening to changing my views. In hopes of encouraging you to do that, my PsychologyToday. com article today describes 11 things on which I’ve changed my mind.

While I’ve changed my mind on many issues, in that article, I describe only items related to my profession: career counseling. Not only have I done the most thinking about that, offering my current thoughts on career may be helpful to yours.

Doubt: 19 Questions with answers less certain than many people believe.

Today, we seem ever more polarized. Of course, the U.S. presidential election brought this into full relief but apart from that.

Excessive zeal leads to excessive closed-mindedness, intolerance, and enmity.  
In a small (if lengthy) attempt to engender moderation, my PsychologyToday.com article today lists some of the day’s more contentious positions and reasons why moderate positions and certainly respect for differing opinions is justified.

How to Be Smart in a Stupid World

• Before making a decision, even a small one, ask yourself, "What's the risk/reward or cost/benefit of each option?"

• Draw your political perspectives from the likes of Tom Friedman, David Gergen, and Charles Krauthammer not from entertainers, for example, Jon Stewart, Dennis Miller, or Stephen Colbert, let alone Angelina Jolie, Adam Sandler, or Bono.

• Patronize The Economist, The PBS News Hour, CSpan, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal rather than Time, The Daily Beast, Cable Network TV News, or the Huffington Post, let alone floggers (no it's not a typo) such as the Daily Kos or Daily Caller. 

• Prefer people who have developed intelligently derived views from both liberal and conservative perspectives rather than people who are liberal or conservative on everything.

• Draw your beliefs more from non-fiction, for example, good biographies or books on leadership than from fiction: novels, movies, and plays. Fiction creators are artists. I don't believe it's wise to form one's views based disproportionately on artists' input.