I already made up my mind

Squeezes out optionality. 

I do this. I am very good at having a strong opinion.

It is exactly at this point I need to step back and look at myself. To hold a space for some other perspective.

I already made up my mind as a fixed stand is a closed mindset. And a closed mindset is a form of fundamentalism. It seeds righteous superiority. Righteous superiority seeds divisiveness. Which seeds war. This doesn’t happen in one fell swoop but in small micro steps.

When a country shuts down citizen protest as a crime, authoritarian-ship has gone rogue. However, this stage is late in the game of authoritarianism. Citizens first had to agree to the thousand and one stages and micro steps that came before. 

History is clear in the story of how this ends. Huge loss of life, property, economy. And then people rise up and revolt.

And we start again. The cycle repeats.

When we hear ourselves saying, “I already made up my mind” in a way that has shut the door to any other option, we might pause and see the fractals we are of a world divided by closed minds. 

Photo taken March 5th 2022