“Apply The 100% Test. If something isn’t true 100% of the time why limit yourself? If you don’t have a monopoly on the truth, why act as if you do? Let these things go. Learn something new. If you aren’t god, why act like it? Broaden your horizons. Educate yourself in new ways of thinking and being. Examine things from different perspectives.

Adopt a different point of view. Try to understand from someone else’s understanding. Try on the opposite argument. Take the opposition’s side. Look at it from a different viewpoint. Can you feel differently about what you think is correct? Must you insist on being correct? How tightly do you hold your belief? Your position? Are the others wrong? OR are you?

If it isn’t true for all time and all people in all places, there are things to learn. Learn about different cultures and practices in different places and times. Expose yourself to new thoughts and new ways to think and be. Reflect on how it is possible for people to believe and think different things. Understand, people can be correct in thinking and valuing differently than you.

LIVE LIFE ON YOUR TERMS: LEARN TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT

Listen! Listen to listen. Listen to understand. Listen to learn. Listen to hear. Listen to get along. Listen without speaking or challenging or arguing. Listen for no reason at all except to better understand and appreciate the speaker and their point of view. Too many people just wait their turn to speak instead of listening. Stop waiting to speak.

Stop waiting to speak and make your points, rather than to reflect on and understand the other person’s points. Stop rushing to make your point or win. Ask questions to understand, not to counter argue. Ask for clarification. Can you say back their words what you understand the person to have said? Can you listen to the other person clarify it for you?

Can you even determine if you understood what they meant? We often think we understand the other person and what they meant only to discover we do not. We think we do but we don’t. Listen. Hear it. Pay attention. Seek understanding. Be active in the process. Attempt to be accepting and open and available and interested in their point of view.

LEARN TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT

Sometimes when listening this way, do nothing but accept it. Don’t provide your views. Sit with it. Let them be heard. Appreciate the other person and their point of view without making your points. Silence IS golden at times. At other times, share and contribute. Learn when to share and when not to. Not everything requires a response or a debate.

Let the other person say what they feel without correcting them. Can you do this? Few are able. Try it. Make a concerted effort to listen to learn and understand and not change the other person. Let them be who they are with their thoughts, beliefs, mistakes. Let them be perfectly imperfect. Stop trying to fix them or convince them to think differently. Love and accept them completely as they are. Allow them freedom to express without censure. Get it? Celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes