Dealing With Close-Mindedness

Steve Pavlina is the author of a popular web site and blog dedicated to personal development, you can wiki the author for his bio, here is an interesting post from 2006 about close mindedness:
excerpts:

"How can you intelligently deal with people who are close-minded, totally stubborn in their beliefs and unreceptive to new ideas? Perhaps you feel certain you’re right and they’re wrong, but you can’t seem to convince them to see things your way. And maybe you are in fact right, but that doesn’t prevent the other person from resorting to irrational arguments to keep from agreeing with you. What can you do in such situations?...

...You’ll probably notice that when you get into an argument with a close-minded person, you become more rigid and close-minded yourself, at least temporarily. You might even argue with the other person in your head for days. But the more you develop the ability to compassionately accept people wherever they are, the more open-minded you become. The less you resist, the more you can forgive and accept...

...Being open-minded doesn’t mean being gullible. Being open-minded means that you’re receptive to new ideas and willing to consider other perspectives to see if they hold any value. If they hold no value for you, dump them. If they strike a chord with you, explore them further. The more you can openly consider ideas without resisting the people behind them, the faster you can grow as a human being...."

read the rest here: