You have to be content with accepting that what you learned or were taught is wrong. Being able to open your eyes to see where your learning or practice is lacking, adjusting and correcting judiciously, is of primary importance to sustained growth and constructive development.
It is very easy to slip into the grip of pride, and think that your learning has already covered the ground of your current experience. When you do this you preclude yourself from learning more from your current moment.
How many conflicts have been perpetuated indefinitely by the attitude of a reluctance to come to see a new, better, or different way of trying to achieve the same ends, all driven by a sense of pride in one’s own infallibility?
Far better that we work together to uncover and advance our mutual goals than to ceaselessly yearn for our own personal gain – a boat rowing in different directions goes nowhere.
Striving to be humble in one’ own humility is also essential – it is funny and not at all surprising how humility can become its own form of pride.
Being able to see things from another point of view is fundamental to empathy; it lends greatly to not only understanding the world, but also forming close, intimate connections with friends and family.
Many of the things we learn are right in a sense, and conducive to constructive growth and development. Eventually, the majority of views that spurred our growth will become limitations to be surpassed. Such is the nature of progress. This is easily observed over generations, but identifiable within lifetimes, or even decades, as well.
But the majority of things we learn and take for granted are founded more on our ignorance of the truth rather than our understanding of it. Again, it’s easy to identify this using historical examples, but much more difficult to pick out the contemporary ones we live with daily.
It takes a keen mind, one that thirsts for greater knowledge, to pay attention to and find these blind spots, and point them out to others so that they may eventually be surpassed collectively.
In our culture, shown through myths and legends, heroes often have auspicious beginnings, something that sets them apart. However, this runs contrary to history, which is ripe with examples of people in positions of influence with privileged upbringings acting entirely out of self-interest and distorted notions of glory and pride. Many of the most unlikely heroes come from humble origins; this is likely because they don’t let their own ‘knowledge’ – views and opinions – get in the way of properly relating with the situation, and acting accordingly.