I Challenge You to be Challenged

It used to be just a publicly accepted concept that a liberal education meant one that included all points of view, just as a liberal arts degree was a varied degree.  I have taken college classes a long time ago, where they would ask you to argue a point of view and then argue the reverse.  The point was education was less about learning a set of facts and more about learning how to learn. 

Personally, I surround myself with people that have a variety of viewpoints.  Why?  If I look back over my life, I can see where I have passionately argued for completely contradictory points of view at different times in my life, and I have learned enough to know that I have a lot to learn.

But, in order to learn, you must be able to be challenged.  It is so sad in our day that so many have fixed points of view... most often not even their OWN points of view but ones that were pressed upon them to just adopt for social acceptance.  And, indeed, having an independent mind that considers things WILL put you at odds with your own groups in one way or another.  I will not lie and say that there is no risk to being your own person.  So many different groups in our society are run like a cult, and I have seen the effects of being in those groups and then questioning something the group believes.  They love you when you are their echo chamber, but they are not so happy when you are their challenge.  And, today, more people want acceptance than truth or even growth and progress.

But, I want to circle back to how it applies to us.  Have you had times where you are drawing a blank on what you should write, do, or the solution to problems you have gone over a million times?  Very likely, it is probably because you are listening to the same sources, considering it in the same way with the same outcomes in your mind or methods of getting to them.  That is definitely the case with me.  I found my life following the same patters, because I approached things in the same way.  If you keep doing the same things, you end up with the same results.  

In one of the latest season episodes of The Bear, a character tells the main character that he didn't feel bad about him having gone off to seek his career, because "sometimes to break patterns you have to break patterns."  It doesn't always mean choosing to leave a situation or a person, because you should be able to approach the same things in a different way, but choosing to be new, though scary and without security, will lead to different results.  It is how you have an adventure, and you cannot have an adventure in your own back yard.

So, for this post, I will just say that I hope you have the courage and willingness to try or think something new for you this week.  Rise to the challenge, and challenge your self.  I don't know what you will find, but you will find something new.  And you might just discover you like the life and the you that comes to be.