Try being wrong tomorrow and see what happens.

Tonight in my kitchen, as I was making granola and accidentally slamming my head into open cabinets, I got to thinking about the great volume of things I have learned. Recently I seem to be more attentive to my growing (and yet still so inadequate!) understanding of my Creator, myself, and my brothers and sisters. Though I come to so few conclusions, I think I can be conclusive about this: The more one is willing to entertain the possibility that she could be wrong, or that her perspective could coexist harmoniously alongside another, the more she will grow and learn.

Learning, in my experience, has a lot to do with giving up my agenda of being right. I fear that the pride lurking within me only begs stagnancy, that unless I surrender to His wisdom, I might allow the many perspectives and inclinations of my human nature to take priority.

If I form a perspective on a particular social issue, for example, and someone has formed an opposing perspective on that same issue, to assume I am the correct one (allowing there could be a correct or an incorrect perspective for this example, or morever, a more ideal and less ideal, resulting from a set of agreed upon standards of measure) is to negate their abilities to develop an intelligent and rational conclusion. Certainly I do not propose to automatically yield to the opposing viewpoint-- but to entertain a loving and open-minded conversation, which may lead to conversationalist A or B changing their minds. It might be the case that no viewpoint has changed, but in the very least there will have been information and passion exchanged, and I doubt whether either participant will leave the interchange without learning something about someone else, themselves, or something much bigger than either of those.

There is always something victorious in allowing yourself to be challenged.

I think I just wrote about how people should debate. That sucks, because I feel so uncomfortable during those. The conversation was just an example. It works equally for being willing to read an article that proposes and explains something one is not a party to. I just don't think we should be so quick to assume that someone else couldn't have legitimate reasoning skills, which is what we are doing when we don't actually listen. Which is what happens when we are desperately trying to prove our point since we know everything.

Maybe? It's 2:30am. Challenge this post.