Mark, a good friend and a UK expat living in the Middle East, came to visit me several years ago. After years of spending a week or so together at conferences, this was a rare treat to finally host him. The time we spent together on my backyard patio and at the local neighborhood pub was one of the joys of my life. After we enjoyed pizza and beer at the pub, I introduced my well-traveled friend to another American delicacy. Kentucky Bourbon. Mark schooled me on the differences between the simple taste of bourbon in comparison to the complexity of Scotch whiskey. But he made another comparison that I’ll never forget.
“Rich, I don’t understand why Americans don’t talk with each other. You have two political parties. In my local pub, I might have three or four parties represented and yet we sip pints and enjoy each other.”
Besides being speechless, I’m sure my face looked puzzled. Today, the UK is likely not the same as it was when we had that conversation. But I am positive about this. Our culture here in my beloved country has lost its mind! We’ve splintered into tribes, unable to listen to each other over our own loud loquacious rants. Mark, who lives as an expat, practices interacting with people who might not only disagree with him about politics but who likely have a different faith, ethnicity, and nationality. Wisdom shows us this. It takes mental agility to get along with others.
Quick fixes or shortcuts will fail us.
The rare humility required for an open mind alludes us in a world of quick fixes, hacks, and shortcuts. We often presume progress advances with speed instead of deliberation, collaboration, or evolution. In fact, we prefer revolution over evolution. Bring out the guillotine! The mob stands ready for change. But they aren’t ready to think, let alone listen. None of us are, if we are honest about it.
Certainty, authority, and power allow the bulldozer to flatten the forest and push people further apart from each other. In our world, we don’t have time to listen. We feel slighted by the system, too weary to empathize in the aftermath of a pandemic while we live within a world of vociferously angry victims. But, what if the answer, the truth, the hope lies within nuance rather than certainty? What if the pervasive ambient ruckus distracts us from hearing our own deeper human longings? Without that, we can’t even begin to hear the needs of others.
Certainty is our enemy. Nuance is our friend.
When the heat rises, the best thing we can do is reject the path of least resistance. The scapegoat, the conspiracy theory, the thing in the bushes are all tools of manipulation. As I’ve studied the creative process, the idea of thinking divergently and then bridging back and forth to convergent thinking improves perspective as well as generates more and better ideas. I practice the divergent thought to imagine, empathize, and expand ideas then switch to convergent thought to sort and test the ideas generated. I repeat this, with humility.
To have an open mind is not about compromising my conscience. Rather, it is about seeing myself and other people with all the information available in front of me. It is telling that this way of thinking is called “divergent”—or not normative! Yet, research shows that we must learn to open our minds to change, to imagine, or to see other possibilities. I can be more certain in my lack of having the full picture than in the opposite. Recent research proves that those who are too confident in how they think are susceptible to conspiracies. With such pride, even the most brilliant person is susceptible. It’s not about how smart you are. It’s about how wise.
Your humility makes you wiser than your IQ.
The lesson is this. Be more like my friend, Mark! Listen deeply, sip pints with the opposing political partisan, and humbly open your mind. Nuance, whether in the taste of whiskey or experience of fellow people, requires effort. Patience proves truth. When the stakes are high, we rightly turn to faith. The comfort of faith isn’t in having certain answers for life and the hereafter. It is in the certainty of relationship with our Creator and each other.
Being right is overrated! Being right with each other is underrated. And, experiencing what it’s like to be with our Creator is misunderstood. It’s love not hate. Grace not anger. Kindness not wrath. Hope not despair. Life not death. But am I humble enough to have an open mind?