Keep an open mind as you navigate to success in life

All throughout history there are many instances of closed-minded behavior that has hampered the growth of humanity. There are other factors, of course. Greed, which is the main instigator behind so many wars and suffering, is one factor. Fear is another, and it comes in many guises including fear for self-preservation, fight or flight impulses, fear of ridicule, etc. Sometimes closed-mindedness is relatively non-destructive, and sometimes in can be deadly, even at a massive scale.

Take the tragic example of Ignaz Semmelweis. In the year 1847 in Austria, this brilliant Hungarian obstetrician discovered and implemented sanitation and hand washing in hospitals and other sensitive medical facilities and situations. Specifically, he instituted compulsory chlorinated lime water hand washing for all physicians and assistants before they commenced child delivery procedures at the Vienna General Hospital. The high mortality rates for infants dropped from a whopping 18% down to 2.2% from 1847 to 1848. However he got into trouble when he tried to encourage the practice more universally. The problem was his theory as to why the high mortality was taking place. Most of the deaths took place when physicians would perform child deliveries after coming from autopsies and contact with cadavers. Deliveries performed by midwifes were far safer. Using correlation rather than exhaustive scientific method caused colleagues and the medical mainstream at the time to reject his ideas. In short, contact with cadavers and cadaveric particles wasn't the reason for the deaths, but bacteria. He did not understand this. The chlorinated lime water wasn't getting rid of the particles and the associated smell, but was instead eliminating the scent by killing the bacteria associated with the infections. His conjecture of causation rather than hard evidence left too many holes in his theories and this caused him much ridicule and rejection. This eventually led to his mental decline and internment into an asylum. He passed away while institutionalized in 1865. So he was incorrect about why the problems existed, but was correct in making certain observations and correlations that allowed him to discover a brilliant and powerful solution to a vexing problem. The closed-mindedness and reported jealousy of some in the medical establishment causing them to refuse Semmelweis's discoveries had a detrimental effect, as it was a death sentence for millions who would go on to die unnecessarily in the following years, including mothers and infants. Had Semmelweis's well documented and obviously effective discoveries been implemented, many deaths would have been prevented. A well documented case of where this failure of the medical establishment killed many was the Crimean War of 1853, where it was found that implementing basic sanitation would have saved the lives of countless soldiers and civilians.

This true story is not a digression. It has deep and powerful meaning. It's one of the most notorious examples of closed-mindedness, greed, and fear setting humanity backwards. It explains how today we have electrical applications, and medical breakthroughs that allows us to handle germs and viruses, when a measly 200 years ago we were so closed-minded we ridiculed, persecuted, and institutionalized the very people that would ultimately make these advances possible today. These episodes have happened so frequently, some believe humanity should be millennia more advanced than it is today if we would have learned these lessons when we should have. Instead, we still live in a closed-minded world that keeps setting itself backward. In a few short years after the sad Semmelweis episode, Louis Pasteur was able to prove the modern tenets of germ theory in a lab, and successfully silenced the naysayers. Even though we had people doing electrical work in the 18th and early 19th centuries, closed-mindedness and ridicule did not allow this critical application to flourish until Thomas Alva Edison created a credible and sustainable light bulb in 1879, eventually leading the way to cell phones and electric cars today.

So where are we closed-minded today? Well for starters after 8,000 years of organized human civilization we haven't learned the lessons of the futility of War and non-democracy. But this is a fascinating topic for another day. For now let's say we haven't learned that we don't know everything, and we don't know the extent of our own ignorance. Just like in 1848 we fail to see the potential in things, and a lot of us still ridicule and reject things because they operate beyond our senses. Like germs up to the end of the 19th century. The thing is, we can't see, hear, feel, taste, and smell germs directly. We experience germs indirectly through tools such as microscopes and events such as diseases. Just like germs transcend our senses, there are many other things that do as well. There is overwhelming evidence to this that appears throughout our history. We are slowly starting to accept the ideas of multiple dimensions, paranormal existence, and life outside our planet. Bio and artificial tech (including A.I.) are a thing, but the science of consciousness is slowly proving to most likely usher the next age of development of humanity, not the "space age".

So what you should do? As explained before, humanity has had many missed opportunities throughout history. We can't blame someone for ignorance, but we can definitely fault someone for closed-mindedness. While you can't change the world by yourself, you can vow not to allow yourself to fall to closed-mindedness and excessive cynicism for things you don't understand. Don't allow yourself to fall behind or be kept behind. Be more open-minded and adventurous. Take advantage of some of the strange ideas out there with believable or proven track records. You'd be amazed of how much you learn and how you grow as a human being.