this mentality is vital to growth.  we should always strive to be learning. whether its some academic endeavor, better techniques for our day to day operations, or an entirely new phenomenon to expand our understanding of the universe, learning must be the goal. there is no one that can claim to have all the perfect answers to life’s problems, thus we must keep our minds open to the solutions we can extract from our daily experiences in order to have a more pleasant experience. we must always search for the best ways to do whatever we must do.

not every situation will offer you some new bit of information on how to do something or handle a situation, but if you do not keep this mentality ALWAYS, then it is very likely you will skip past many situations where there is a valuable lesson for you. i cannot stress the importance of ALWAYS enough. a republican might assume that a conversation with a democrat will not yield any solutions for the republican because the person providing solutions is democratic, but that is not the mentality most conducive towards seeking the best solutions to life’s problems.

there are many times where properties of a situation will lead you to believe that you have all the knowledge ascertainable from the situation and have the best way of handling a situation. we cannot excuse these situations from our journey for knowledge. life is not without its anomalies: often times, a rookie will teach a veteran something, a child will call something previously unnoticed to his parent’s attention, an idiot will be correct, a genius will be wrong, etc.

there is always the chance that something new will be brought to us and if we go around with some pointless pride or tradition causing us to ignore the opinions/thoughts/ways of others, we will not grow as individuals and not get the most out of our existence.

the most important thing to note is that there is NO benefit whatsoever from assuming we always know the best solution for a problem. people often become so entrenched in their own ways and the diminution of pride that we fail to actually consider all the solutions we are presented with.

• if we assume we know best, we don’t properly investigate all the options and are only taking the best solution if our initial assumption is correct.
• if we assume we don’t know the best, then we investigate each solution and pick the best one, thus ensuring we always choose the best solution to a problem.

for instance, the person we hate most, for whatever reason, might say something true and useful in the middle of a heated argument. however, our mind is set to make them look stupid so it works on a way to make their insightful and accurate statement look wrong and so a chain of thought is launched to find the specific path to the dissolution of that statement.  here’s the thing guys, the mind gets what it wants. it is a ridiculously efficient problem-solving machine and will make solutions even when they don’t actually exist. its why people can find clues to support their conspiracy theories, why religious fanatics can see signs from God, etc. the point is that your brain will find a way to make this insightful and correct statement wrong, thus the only way to prevent that is to earnestly investigate the issue. that, i argue, is achieved by always being open to learning. to know that even though this statement is coming from someone i despise, i should test its validity from a completely neutral stance.