What do plants, students, revolutionaries and good travelers all have in common?
Well, first off, they can be found everywhere. What I'm getting at here is that they are all open to change.
The plant that survives is the one that stays strong through the seasons, surviving frost and drought. The student that learns best sets aside all previous thoughts and goes forth to learn with an open mind. A revolutionary sees the problems in a society and fights against those norms, knowing that there will be change despite not always knowing what the change will be. And lastly, a good traveler best learns about new cultures and places by trying new things and diving headfirst into new experiences.
All of those kinds of people are just a few good examples showing why being open to change can be one of the best choices a person can make. Whether it be through resilience or throwing caution to the wind, being able to let go of old thoughts and assumptions provides many benefits.
By being open to change, solutions are found. One of my favorite sayings that I learned growing up says: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Not only is this practical, but also scientific. It's basically the entire premise of the scientific method: if you want to see a change in something you're measuring, you have to change the surrounding factors until you find the one that gives the satisfying result. But if you exclude the possibility of one factor being the right one, you're excluding a completely valid and possible answer to your question. But enough about science.
Learning this and applying it as early as possible has been one of the best things I have done personally. When I was younger, it helped me discover new cuisines, turning me from a picky eater into a human garbage can. These days, I use openness in finding new music tastes I don't think about listening to and in doing research for college papers. Now that I'm abroad, I'm also using this openness to learn more about the culture I'll be immersed in for the time being. Instead of completely sticking to the things I know and am comfortable with, I balance it out by also trying new things including trying extremely different foods (I just recently had an octopus tentacle squirming around in my mouth as I was eating it) and going to the less-touristy parts of the area to find out where the locals recommend to go.
Staying open-minded and trying new things actively is a great way to live life and learn about the world. That being said, it's not the easiest thing to do starting out. It's like an exercise for the mind—the more you practice it, the easier it becomes. For starters, my favorite recommendations are to try something simple, like trying a food you've never tried before, or taking a cold shower, purely for a new experience (and try not to scream from the sheer cold!!). From there, move on to bigger and bigger experiences, and you too can come that much closer to becoming an experienced, cosmopolitan citizen of the world.
