I'm Right And You're Not!

Do you ever wonder how some people come to have an idea in their mind that they translate into fact, even though it may not be?

I was reviewing a document submitted by a worker who was responding to a complaint about a driver. The complaint stated the driver was speeding. The worker wrote that the driver was speeding and driving erratically. When I asked him to show me in the complaint where it stated the driver was driving erratically, he declared, "Speeding is driving erratically!" and became progressively more upset as I asked him to explain why he would equate the two.

I pointed out several examples where someone could be driving erratically, but not speeding (drunk drivers get pulled over all the time for driving under the speed limit but erratically), or speeding but not driving erratically (in full control of the vehicle), yet he simply could not see that the two were not synonymous. I finally had to just give him one of my looks and gently explain that, regardless of how he may interpret what was written (speeding) in the complaint, he could not add to the wording and to leave it as cited in the original complaint.

What was saddest to me, though, was that he was completely unwilling to even entertain the possibility that he might be wrong or, more importantly, be willing to change his perspective to look at something from a new direction or in a new and different light. Such close-mindedness is why some people never grow, never change and never expand their minds. All because they have an idea or thought and, no matter how wrong it may be, hold onto it as fact.

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