Life's Funny That Way

Ideas Change and Expand the Mind

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

Life is a process of learning and growing.  If we are open to new ideas, we will truly never see the world through the same eyes for the rest of our lives.  Once we accept and embrace an idea, it has changed us, if just in some small way.

A profound, if clichéd instance, would be that of the world being flat.  Once it was embraced that the world was indeed round, this brought forth a whole new way of thinking.  It made clear so many more possibilities.  Once the idea is accepted, we never revert back to the original thought.  Never again will we think the world to be flat. 

The same can be said of other ideas.  I also believe that, as more new ideas are accepted by a person, the more willing they are to stretch the bounds of imagination to accept other ideas.  This is not to say that all ideas accepted are true or correct, but an open mind is more willing to accept new lines of thinking.  Thinking breeds more thinking, at least in my opinion, and ideas are generated from other ideas.  To close one’s mind to ideas is to cease to grow and learn – it is a state somewhat like death.  I fancy myself a student of life, and a product of my experiences – as I think we all are.  In that vein, I will not be the same person in ten years as I am now.  And, now, am not the same person I was ten years ago.  Ideas breed change, and if we do not change, we falter.


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