Last night I was studying Kanji (Japanese chracters) and came across the character for “stubborn or obstinate”. The thing that was so interesting about the character was the truth in the story it tells. The Japanese character for stubborn (頑) is made of two basic elements. The first is (元) which means “beginning” and the second is (頁) meaning “page”. So basically, the character means the beginning page. Or even better, someone refusing to move past the first page and therefore stubborn.

This stubbornness seems to cause a lot of the worlds problems. Once we learn something (especially as a child) it helps gain a view of the world. To change the things we learn would change our perceptions of the world.  And so we tend to resist these changes even if the ideas we hold are not accurate or beneficial.  If you think about it, it wasn’t that long ago that we thought the world was flat, the sun rotated the earth, or that we were burning people for being witches. Now, I am not going to go into religions and morals, but I think the world would be a better place if everyone kept themselves open to change and questions the things they are taught. Too often we take the words of “teachers” to be “fact”, when many times they are just opinions or beliefs.

There is a great e-book titled Software For Your Brain that not only covers how these thought processes came about, but also how to turn yourself into a better thinker and a happier person. I highly recommend it. It is a fun read and best of all it is a free download! Though be careful. It might just change your view of things!

Software for your Brain

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