It is common knowledge that change is the only constant. But you know what’s not so common? To find someone who embraces change easily.

Adaptability is a strong suit of humans. Not only did we master different geographies and their climates centuries ago, but we also have the creative ability to make spears out of sticks and fire out of stones. Adding new things to our collective consciousness over the years, every generation stands on a pedestal higher than its predecessors.

As a result, today, we can treat diseases that were fatal in the past and use phones to see someone thousands of miles away. And all this started with curiosity, a desire to explore new. Our own monkey predecessors could not have guessed if curiosity would get them so far.

Curiosity is challenging. It demands us to change our existing notions. But what happens if we grew up with those notions, confusing them for our identity, and our mind associates them with comfort?

The Man With the Hammer

Once upon a time, there was a man with a hammer. This hammer had been in his family for generations, and they were famous for their hammer. Naturally, the man grew up to be a master of the hammer, but there was a problem. Hammer was the only tool he knew. Blinded in pride for his single skill, the man worked even with nuts and screws as if they were a nail, hammering everything. As you can guess, life was tough for the man with the hammer.

To put it concisely, “To the man with the hammer, everything is a nail.”

Are you aware of any man with a hammer? The value of knowledge lies in breaking the chains that limit our vision, and pave way for new solutions & growth. But sadly, the world is full of people who hold their knowledge as their identity and status symbol, just like the man with the hammer. As a result, we have people who still hold on to archaic ideas like “flat earth” and “sun revolving around the earth,” just because they were taught so.

The very knowledge that is meant to grow us becomes a burden for a person who refuses to accept new things, holding on to a stale idea. It is good to be skeptical of new things, as a way to filter out noise from the signal, but failing to balance your skepticism with openness is a recipe for misery.

A Play of Perspectives

Morgan Housel noted, “Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. We're all biased to our own personal history.”

Every new book you read and idea you discuss is a new perspective added to your toolset. It helps you see the world in a new way, which would not have been possible with past knowledge. Anyone who tries to create something new, from music to machines, knows this fact, always flexible to change the past mistakes and add new skills. This is the reason why many CEOs of big companies are known to read 50+ books every year. Famous investor Warren Buffet is known to have read 600 to 1000 pages every day at the beginning of his career, and even after turning more than 90 years old, 80% of his day goes into reading.

While 52 books might be extreme, but the idea is that in a constantly changing world, only your knowledge can help you solve the new problems as they arise.

In Lao Tzu’s words, “A man is born gentle and weak; at his death, he is hard and stiff. All things, including the grass and trees, are soft and pliable in life; dry and brittle in death. Stiffness is thus a companion of death; flexibility a companion of life. An army that cannot yield will be defeated. A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind. The hard and stiff will be broken; the soft and supple will prevail.”