An idea is an idea. It exists independently of the human mind and cannot be changed. However, depending on what you think, feel and believe, it can lead to another idea, and yet another. The way you approach ideas will define their fate — and your destiny.
Working with ideas
You can connect with ideas intellectually, emotionally, or existentially.
Connecting intellectually means you understand the idea and find it relevant, meaningful and useful. You get it, it’s just right.
Bonding emotionally with an idea, you feel the importance and find it attractive, satisfying and suitable. You love it, it’s high priority.
Associating existentially with an idea makes it feel real, and the idea will resonate with your worldview and mindset. You believe it, it’s the truth.
Just as an idea can resonate with us, it can challenge us too.
If it confronts our knowledge, we tend to judge the idea as irrelevant, uninteresting, and irrational. From what we have learned, the idea looks odd and unfitting. It is not right.
If the idea opposes our values, we reject it as incomprehensible, insignificant, and even disgusting. Personal preferences and emotional attachments will keep us from welcoming the idea. It is not important.
Finally, if the idea challenges our belief system, we will label it deceptive, false and impossible. Our personal narrative of who and what we are will not allow the idea to be further considered. It is not true.
Our resistance grows with the perceived strangeness of the idea, understood as the extent to which it challenges what we think, feel and believe. To fully embrace a new idea, you must therefore try to expand your knowledge, release your emotions, and rewrite your personal narrative.
Stretch your knowledge
On Google, you get about 2.180.000.000 results when tapping “climate change.” A search for “good life” yields 10.500.000.000 results. Tons of information and knowledge to gain. How much of this do you know about, have access to and are familiar with?
The biggest barrier to new insights is not Google or other search engines. It’s assumptions…
