A view of the War Memorial Plaza of
Malaysia- a prosperous Asian nation with
a high human development index
What is the difference between broadminded people and narrow minded people? Malaysia- a prosperous Asian nation with
a high human development index
Broadminded people have the following characteristics:
They are open to new ideas. They are keen to know more about others. They are willing to listen to find out their own weaknesses and willing to correct it willfully with conscious efforts.
Normally they become more balanced and matured as they gain more and more life experiences.
They wholeheartedly encourage others to do good deeds and are willing to provide good and impartial advice to others when they are approached. As they grow up, they discard negative qualities such as envy, anger, anxiety, intolerance, prejudice, etc. As they grow, they acquire more and more knowledge and are keen to learn all the time. As they gain more and more knowledge, they understand their ignorance more and aspire to learn more.
Since they are broadminded, they become more and more aware about the true nature of God, regardless of their traditional learning or religious upbringing. They might also realize the purpose of life and may adopt a life style that is simple and humble regardless of their position or status.
They become more cultured and civilized with experience of life. They would never use their power, wealth and position for satisfying their own vested interests.
They give first priority to the society than to their own personal interests.
They would never argue with others for forcing their ideas or viewpoints.
They would not get angry with others who are not accepting their view points or ideas, but my have sympathy for those ignorant fellows around them who have mind capacities much lower.
It is not difficult for them to understand good from bad and with time they develop the technique of appreciating good in every thing and in every deeds. They tend to become true mentors for those who are in their team.
They enjoy working, but they are not workaholics. They understand the importance of both work and leisure. They are truly balanced and are not addicted to any one particular thing always!
Broadminded people would prove to be very good leaders. But they would not adopt clever and cunning ways to climb up to leadership positions!
Since they have not closed their minds for new thoughts and ideas, they are bound to become more and more experienced with life experiences. Therefore they are the ones who lead the society towards cultural advancements, progress and development.
Broadminded people like reading , listening and learning the ideas and thoughts of others. They also like to share their thoughts with others. But they dislike to force their thoughts on others and also would not normally get carried away by the false teachings of others. Truly, many of them develop the capability to discern the right from the wrong over the years!
Children of broadminded people may be like the children of every one else during their initial years of growth. But later in their adulthood, these children do exhibit good qualities of their broadminded parent.
Broadminded nature is both inherent and acquired. Some people may have inherently better chances for developing a broadminded nature than others. But broadminded nature could also be nurtured and developed by conscious efforts. Education imparted by broadminded teachers help children to develop this quality, even when they have little of it inherently with them.
A society with more and more broadminded people would become more and more developed socially. The human development index of such societies would be higher than those societies where such individuals are a minority.
All the above said qualities are just the reverse for the narrow minded people, in varying degrees. Narrow minded people are those having inherent narrow mindedness and those who did not get the right kind of education to remove their inherent negative qualities.
Narrow minded children educated and trained by narrow minded teachers develop as hardcore narrow minded people in the society. They are full of jealousy, anger and envy towards all those who appear as successful in life. They cannot tolerate beauty anywhere. They keep devising ways and means to destroy good everywhere due to their jealousy.
Narrow minded people are suspicious of others. Fear, anxiety, envy and anger keep fuming within them destroying their mind and body slowly. They keep their minds closed that they fail to learn from others. A few of them become dangerous extremists who get sadistic pleasure in inflicting injuries to others.
They are prone to develop false ideas and thoughts. It is easy for those cleverer among them to make them their blind followers.
The more narrow minded people in a society, the more it tend to become underdeveloped socially. The narrow minded ones keep negating the good works of the broadminded people!
It is possible for narrow minded people to discard their negative qualities to some extent provided they get proper education and training from broadminded teachers. It is possible for the society to reduce the number of narrow minded people by devising and implementing broadminded education system. Such societies and nations are likely to progress culturally and socially in a much faster pace.
Narrow minded people might adopt all clever tactics to get in to leadership positions. They aspire for leadership positions not for doing any good for the society, but for deriving sadistic pleasures by inflicting problems to others. Power positions and leadership for them are for their own self enjoyment. And that is what they perceive with their narrow minds! Narrow minded leaders are likely to make their societies and nations deprived of all good things and might even inflict greater damages and pain to all due to their narrow minded decisions and actions.
Organizations headed by narrow minded people might show apparent success for a short while. But such organizations are bound to prove as failures in the long run.
Your narrow minded relative or neighbor or colleague or even spouse would never be able to accept your success. They would never appreciate you or provide you any complementary support in your acts and thoughts. Instead, they keep pulling you down either directly or indirectly that you find it difficult to live in peace. On the other hand, had they been broadminded, you would have become a happy achiever! When every one like you become a happy achiever, your society naturally become one high in human development index.
It is a good idea to have an introspection to find whether you have any narrow mindedness in you. Though it is difficult for narrow minded people to get rid of this negative and destructive quality, by conscious and willful efforts much desirable could be achieved.
Remember, becoming a broadminded personality is one of the greatest achievements in human life. There are many inherent rewards, though they may not be directly discernible always. Broadminded persons are not like touch-me-not plants. They would not show sudden outbursts of joy or gloom because they are balanced and matured. But within their minds they are loving and with full of peace. Many of them acquire the good qualities of Character, Competency, Compassion and Courage (the 4-Cs) as they grow up in their life, unlike the narrow minded ones.
Now let me give some illustrations that give the nature of narrow mindedness and broad mindedness from real life experiences:
In a particular organization, this narrow minded person become overnight successful and becomes elevated to the position of the chief executive. He had inherent weaknesses in many fronts and since he was narrow minded, he was not able to realize his weaknesses. Over the years he became highly suspicious of others and had developed a grudge to all those around him because of his inferiority complex. He was anxious to demonstrate that he was better than others and was waiting for an opportunity to teach all those others who directly or indirectly ignored his presence in the organization. By his good fortune, he got a family mentor who could catapult him to higher career positions regardless of his inherent weaknesses. And thus he became the CEO. He did not waste time to fulfill his desires of teaching all those others some befitting lessons causing much distress and damage to the organization as a whole! Since he was narrow minded, it was difficult for him to understand his mistakes and follies!
Sometimes, in an organization (it could be even a government), the new incoming head of the organization, if he or she is narrow minded, would tend to become too pre-occupied with such actions that are predominantly with the intention to negate the work of his or her predecessor due to certain kind of grudge that they have developed due to their narrow minds! The society as a whole suffers on account of this.
In a privately developed apartment complex in India, the builders had built dwelling units of a few different sizes. The residents later formed the owners' association and registered a society for the purpose of managing the common interest affairs of the apartment complex. Some knowledgeable and broadminded individuals helped in making the most acceptable bylaws in accordance with the laws of the land. The bye-laws considered all owners equally and they did not make any differentiation among themselves on account of the size of the apartment they owned. The association carried out the management smoothly as there was no disagreement among them. However, soon a few narrow minded among the lot began to play their crooked activities. They started creating divisions among themselves by demanding a change in the bye-laws allowing differential treatments of the members according to the size of their dwelling units. The management of the common facilities of the apartment complex soon began to go haywire affecting all who lived there.
A young couple were happily married and both were having their own successful professional careers. If they are narrow minded, marital disharmony would begin to spoil their peace both at home and at their work place. In many cases, this situation might reach to such heights that either one of them (most likely the wife, if it is in India) may leave the job or they go for a divorce. Depending upon the degree of narrow mindedness, they develop varying degrees of animosities among themselves. If the family members too are narrow minded, the husband-wife dispute soon envelop a larger group of people!
The management board of a company wants to provide some good incentives to all its employees because the majority in the board are broadminded people. They are willing to spend a sum as high as 10% of their annual profits for this purpose. The board entrusts the CEO to work out the details. The CEO in turn sets up a committee of three headed by a narrow minded finance official for a detailed study and for recommendations. The committee, greatly influenced by its head, finally gives a recommendation that in the final analysis was more of a disincentive rather than any incentive to the employees. Here the head of the committee being narrow minded was ready to give up his own benefits. He disliked the idea of the majority of the employees getting some better benefits!
A private school run by a society floated by an Indian church soon became very famous attracting a huge rush of parents to get their children admitted in this school. Soon the society's accounts began to swell with huge money as the cost of running the school was much lower than the amount of fees collected from the students. The funds were so huge now that there was no problem for the school to extent better pay and perks to the teachers and the staff. They could now also hire the best teachers and enhance the infrastructural facilities. They are also in a position to provide fee concessions to a good number of deserving children or to institute various scholarships. But unfortunately, the management committee of the school comprised of narrow minded Christians who could never understand the broadminded teachings of Jesus. The school, obviously, could not make any further progress due to this narrow mindedness!
A man in Kerala lives by the side of a main road. He has more than half acres of land where his house is located. But his financial situation is not so good. A million rupees can make his financial problems vanish for ever. This fellow has a neighbor who is financially much better than him. But this neighbor of his is unable to buy a car and use it because he does not have a proper approach road to his house. For making an approach road, the first mentioned person has to allocate some of his land for that purpose which he had been denying for quite some time now. The richer one now has offered more than a million rupees for the one or two cent of land that the first person has to spare for widening the approach road to his house. But the first man is so narrow minded and adamant that he would not budge. He prefers not to take the money. For him, the neighbor using the car conveniently is a bigger problem than his own financial problems! He does not want to solve his own problems because it gives some advantage to his neighbor!
Take the cases of the Aranmula airport proposal or the proposed liquor ban of Kerala. These are also typical examples of narrow minds in action!
In short, the more the individuals in a society are narrow minded, the more it is difficult for the society to prosper!
Now let me give some illustrations that give the nature of narrow mindedness and broad mindedness from real life experiences:
In a particular organization, this narrow minded person become overnight successful and becomes elevated to the position of the chief executive. He had inherent weaknesses in many fronts and since he was narrow minded, he was not able to realize his weaknesses. Over the years he became highly suspicious of others and had developed a grudge to all those around him because of his inferiority complex. He was anxious to demonstrate that he was better than others and was waiting for an opportunity to teach all those others who directly or indirectly ignored his presence in the organization. By his good fortune, he got a family mentor who could catapult him to higher career positions regardless of his inherent weaknesses. And thus he became the CEO. He did not waste time to fulfill his desires of teaching all those others some befitting lessons causing much distress and damage to the organization as a whole! Since he was narrow minded, it was difficult for him to understand his mistakes and follies!
Sometimes, in an organization (it could be even a government), the new incoming head of the organization, if he or she is narrow minded, would tend to become too pre-occupied with such actions that are predominantly with the intention to negate the work of his or her predecessor due to certain kind of grudge that they have developed due to their narrow minds! The society as a whole suffers on account of this.
In a privately developed apartment complex in India, the builders had built dwelling units of a few different sizes. The residents later formed the owners' association and registered a society for the purpose of managing the common interest affairs of the apartment complex. Some knowledgeable and broadminded individuals helped in making the most acceptable bylaws in accordance with the laws of the land. The bye-laws considered all owners equally and they did not make any differentiation among themselves on account of the size of the apartment they owned. The association carried out the management smoothly as there was no disagreement among them. However, soon a few narrow minded among the lot began to play their crooked activities. They started creating divisions among themselves by demanding a change in the bye-laws allowing differential treatments of the members according to the size of their dwelling units. The management of the common facilities of the apartment complex soon began to go haywire affecting all who lived there.
A young couple were happily married and both were having their own successful professional careers. If they are narrow minded, marital disharmony would begin to spoil their peace both at home and at their work place. In many cases, this situation might reach to such heights that either one of them (most likely the wife, if it is in India) may leave the job or they go for a divorce. Depending upon the degree of narrow mindedness, they develop varying degrees of animosities among themselves. If the family members too are narrow minded, the husband-wife dispute soon envelop a larger group of people!
The management board of a company wants to provide some good incentives to all its employees because the majority in the board are broadminded people. They are willing to spend a sum as high as 10% of their annual profits for this purpose. The board entrusts the CEO to work out the details. The CEO in turn sets up a committee of three headed by a narrow minded finance official for a detailed study and for recommendations. The committee, greatly influenced by its head, finally gives a recommendation that in the final analysis was more of a disincentive rather than any incentive to the employees. Here the head of the committee being narrow minded was ready to give up his own benefits. He disliked the idea of the majority of the employees getting some better benefits!
A private school run by a society floated by an Indian church soon became very famous attracting a huge rush of parents to get their children admitted in this school. Soon the society's accounts began to swell with huge money as the cost of running the school was much lower than the amount of fees collected from the students. The funds were so huge now that there was no problem for the school to extent better pay and perks to the teachers and the staff. They could now also hire the best teachers and enhance the infrastructural facilities. They are also in a position to provide fee concessions to a good number of deserving children or to institute various scholarships. But unfortunately, the management committee of the school comprised of narrow minded Christians who could never understand the broadminded teachings of Jesus. The school, obviously, could not make any further progress due to this narrow mindedness!
A man in Kerala lives by the side of a main road. He has more than half acres of land where his house is located. But his financial situation is not so good. A million rupees can make his financial problems vanish for ever. This fellow has a neighbor who is financially much better than him. But this neighbor of his is unable to buy a car and use it because he does not have a proper approach road to his house. For making an approach road, the first mentioned person has to allocate some of his land for that purpose which he had been denying for quite some time now. The richer one now has offered more than a million rupees for the one or two cent of land that the first person has to spare for widening the approach road to his house. But the first man is so narrow minded and adamant that he would not budge. He prefers not to take the money. For him, the neighbor using the car conveniently is a bigger problem than his own financial problems! He does not want to solve his own problems because it gives some advantage to his neighbor!
Take the cases of the Aranmula airport proposal or the proposed liquor ban of Kerala. These are also typical examples of narrow minds in action!
In short, the more the individuals in a society are narrow minded, the more it is difficult for the society to prosper!
Would you like to share some of your views about this in this forum?
To Rajan Mathew,
ReplyDeleteAmen sir. No one can live in a society like that, and those who know better but cannot fight against it have no choice but to move away from such a society. The arrogance of these people.