Up until a few months ago, I discovered something I’m ashamed to admit. But I think if I share this secret with you, it will no longer be something I’m ashamed of, but a learning experience that can be utilized. I thought I was open-minded and accepting of others, but it turns out I was a closed-minded kind of open-minded. I was judgmental.

I started realizing I wasn’t as non-judgmental as I thought I was when I heard a voice inside my head that didn’t belong to me. It came from the way my friends and family described people to me. It drew conclusions about others based on something as minuscule as hair color. Their judgments had creeped into me and became my way of thinking about people.

After beating myself up about this for quite some time, I realized it’s easy for everyone, not just me, to not be aware of what an open mind entails. You see someone and you may not think particularly less of them, but, within a matter of seconds, with or without you realizing, you judge them. As soon as I realized that this is what I was doing, I forced myself to recognize and actively fight these subconscious thoughts, and I couldn’t be happier with my results.

Because I was trained to be quick to judge other people, I was also quick to judge myself. When I changed the way I looked at people I opened up the doors that I shut when I feared to speak to someone. I assumed they wouldn’t like me because they looked or just seemed to be the type of person who didn’t like the type of person I was. Now, I know none of that means anything. These reasons that I let others build in my head were made-up creatures that disabled me from putting myself out there.

To truly be open-minded is to not see others and ourselves as black, white, asian, ugly, attractive, fat, thin, etc. Once you labelling yourself and fight the subconscious thoughts that label other people, you start to see everyone, including yourself, for who we truly are, human beings. This means it won’t hurt to smile, compliment, and even start a conversation with anyone and everyone. We are all riding the same roller coaster called life and it wouldn’t hurt if we had more people to experience the ups and downs with.