Adopt the learning mindset⁠

2nd of December 2019

Category: philosophy⁠

If you want to learn, if you want to change, it will be much easier if you are open to it. This sounds obvious, but often we carry with us some sort of subconscious fear of changing, of learning new things that might falsify the old. Instead, we search for things that are confirming our believes and disregard the things that falsify them. Be very attentive and try to catch everything that might shatter your beliefs, be open to examine it and act accordingly to the truth. If you are ready to change and learn, then this can happen at any moment, at any instant. A learning environment where things are taught can help, but it is not a necessity. Adopt the learning mindset, the openness, do not cling to your beliefs and knowledge, embrace ambivalence; two opposites can exist at the same time. Many humans have a massive problem with ambivalence, and they try to solve the issue with disregarding one side or some other way to resolve the ambivalence so "it makes sense". When you learn new things ambivalence might come up, you might be caught in different pieces of information that all seem to be true. Accept it. The world is complex. It is not bad to not have "the final answer", it is just the reality of our life. ⁠

Summing it up: If you hold too much to your ego, if you are afraid of having been "wrong" in the past, you will not learn. If you accept that you are an ever-changing being, that what was right for you yesterday, might not be valid anymore today, then you can learn.⁠

Joseph Bartz