Attributed to Doug M.
Doug is known to many in Calgary for his regular morning notes and meditations. That and his habit of service to the world that is, to my experience, unique. He cleans sinks. Everywhere he goes he cleans the sinks in the bathrooms. Now, I suspect that he is very careful about choosing the buildings that he goes into, but regardless, it is a fine habit that he acquired after agreeing to a post-treatment maintenance contract that required a brief act of anonymous service to the world.
If this is not enough, Doug develops great aphorisms, like this one.
So true is the statement. So often I walk into meetings in business, conversations with friends, and prayers with God ‘knowing it all.’ There is no room to listen, much less learn. I already know it all.
And knowing it all has a couple of different dimensions. One way that I know it all is to really believe that I know and accurately perceive all relevant facts. Moreover, I perceive these facts from an appropriately majestic vantage point. High above the common crowd. This way of ‘knowing it all’ is amusing and even I can dismiss it when it is pointed out. Though it sometimes takes a herculean effort to dislodge the attitude of superiority and justification that this mental attitude engenders.
But a more insidious and difficult manner of ‘knowing it all’ is to reach a conclusion and lock on to it as the final word. Then regardless of evidence and other viewpoints, I can defend to the death the opinions and views that I have carefully, or carelessly, reached.
In either case, I am not in a position to listen or learn. My mind is fully and completely closed.
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