There Is No Textbook on Life

“You cling to your own limitations and these little worldly ideas may be your highest ideal. . . But there are others who have seen the truth and cannot rest in these limitations, who have done with these things and want to get beyond . . . Why do you want to bind them down to your ideas?”

— Swami Vivekananda

Do you use the same phone or computer from the early 2000s? Of course not. Then why do you cling to outdated beliefs? Isn’t it better to update them as often as you update your gadgets? And what better way to do that than to learn from people whose perspectives differ from yours?

Stay humble enough to learn from others, especially those who made the world a better place. If you can’t meet such people, read about them. And instead of stubbornly rejecting anything from their lives that doesn’t fit your worldview, ask: What can I apply from here? That’s how you become open-minded. That’s how you grow.

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you,” Steve Jobs had said. “And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”

The book on your life will be written by you and you alone. As long as you remain open-minded, its pages will be filled with chapters worth reading.

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