#16 The Predicament of the Mind
Restructuring the relationship with the self: Why behavioral change is essentially about the battling of ideas
“From the point of view of the Way (Tao), things have no nobility or meanness. From the point of view of things themselves, each regards itself as noble and other things as mean. From the point of view of common opinion, nobility and meanness are not determined by the individual himself.”1 — Chuang Tzu
I have always been interested in learning and exploring ideas and value systems. I guess this is because I have a relatively high score on the Big Five personality test’s openness trait.
Of course, looking back over my past ten years of exploration, I realize that allowing myself to be driven by an open-minded approach to life has generated mixed results.
On the positive side, opening myself to diverse experiences has broadened my horizons of how the world works to a limited degree, given my narrow understanding of things. What worked for me was that openness pushed me to some incredible and unimaginable interactions with people and shared experiences that I would never have been able to go through without this mindset.
Indeed, I was conscious of some past actions and choices because I knew I was driven by particular ideas and principles. But it is only years later that I can fully grasp the validity of those ideas and narratives. In this sense, accumulating experiences is kind of like a process of disenchantment. You never know how you will reassess past experiences and the previous version of yourself until you have reached that moment of awakening or epiphany.
On the flip side, being directed by a high level of openness may not be a good thing. My experience tells me that I would have been more productive and achieved more if I had a lower score that could make me concentrate on just a few critical endeavors.
