How broad minded are you?

Here I was sitting and chatting to Brinda about broad mindedness. She was saying that her family is very broad minded. I was and have always wondered what a broad mind is. Is it if you wear skimpy clothes, have a girlfriend/boyfriend and parents are cool about it, swear and your parents swear back at you, of course not while angry, but just in the by the way types, just like you would do with your friends. Does this make you broad minded? Are people not following any of the above narrow minded? I don’t think so. And here’s why I think so.

Broad minded according to me is how well you can adapt to your surrounding society and their point of views and can still hold on to your views and beliefs. This does not mean you change completely and forget what you have been bought up with, nor does it mean you pick up some of the things which you would be otherwise ashamed to doing but do it just because the folks around you are doing.

The point of conversation that I was having with Brinda, was her parents are very broad minded. I don’t think my parents are narrow minded but maybe there are to some extent. Older generation has lived with a certain mindset and changing them over night is not possible at all. Some people have lived in a certain place with own set of customs and beliefs and they have lived there all their lives. If you would to get them out of that place and put them in a new place with a different contradictory set of beliefs and custom, them getting shocked and refusing to change is very natural. I mean I am sure if I were to go to the French Riviera and go to the nude beaches there, I will be of course happy to be there, but I don’t think I would be able to walk around naked and have sex with a stranger there.

A person having a broad mind is a person who can understand the mentality of the other person and change according to the changing society. Our society is very dynamic in its views. The changes that are happening are very rapid with the fast pace of life that we live today. With every new invention, discovery and the new set of information that is available to us today, our thought process can change and should change. How we take in this information process it and change accordingly is what will make one broad minded.