Being open-minded can enrich our knowledge of the world around us, but it can also come at a cost: losing your own mind. Unfortunately, my desire for knowledge led me to develop an unhealthy form of open-mindedness, in which I suppressed my own thoughts to better listen to and understand other people’s viewpoints. Even if someone was spouting opinions that were antithetical to my rights and humanity, I forced myself to smile and listen to them in order to develop a more well-rounded view of the world. To some degree, I felt like a caged animal, trapped and unable to speak my mind. Luckily, I have finally started to break free from this mentality, but not in the way that I expected.
I met my friend Fred in sixth grade and we immediately became inseparable in and out of school. I soon became close with his parents, who would often invite my parents and me over for dinner. I will never forget the times when Fred and I toured his family’s farm to discuss school while our parents talked about who knows what. Our friendship was perfect, except for one minor thing: Fred’s father constantly discussed politics when I came over. His parents were politically conservative and quite religious, and his father was very open about his disgust with Democrats’ stances on major issues. I valued learning his views because it gave me insight into the larger political debates surrounding various issues, even if I didn’t always agree with his conclusions. However, I would always feel uncomfortable when he said he opposed gay marriage because Fred’s parents had no idea I was gay. I was always afraid to tell his parents the truth, not because I would lose their approval, but because I was afraid of losing the opportunity to learn and understand their views, no matter how much I disagreed.
Fred, on the other hand, knew about my sexuality and was one of the first people who congratulated me when I met my first boyfriend. My dating life had no impact on our friendship until his parents saw a photo of us holding hands. Then, one night, Fred called me at 9 P.M. to tell me his parents wanted him to end our six-year-long friendship. “I’m sorry,” he said. “My parents said they don’t want me associating with sinners and being gay is a sin.”
I couldn’t believe what Fred had said. At that moment, I remembered all the time and energy I had spent trying to digest his father’s views, and then it dawned on me: why was I putting so much effort into understanding someone who would never bother to understand me? Up until this point, I had been committed to an extreme form of open-mindedness, which came at the expense of my own thoughts and feelings. I would stare at Fred’s father while he ranted on about how gay people are ruining the institution of marriage, instead of standing up for my own rights and humanity. But after seeing how truly intolerant his parents were, I realized I was heading down a dangerous path of compensating myself for other people who aren’t worth my time and energy.
This experience taught me to see the world from my point of view again. Instead of standing up for myself, I acted like a human punching bag by quietly absorbing hateful and bigoted remarks, which has made me stronger in the long-run; I now know my thoughts and feelings matter and that I’m just as important to this earth as anyone else is. And after everything, I can proudly say I’m a more empowered individual and that Fred and I are still friends to this day.