Get into the mind of the person in front of you before you speak your mind.

Before you try to convince anyone of anything, understand their basic moral world first. Ask questions, step on their toes—apologizing afterward. Then, when you think you might understand them, from their perspective speak to them of your perspective. But if you don’t understand someone, don’t be surprised. One out of every hundred or so people are surprisingly complex. For them, you just have to say, “Well, this is what I believe.”

People In A Box

Don’t trust any ideology. If anyone thinks that they have a system of thought that explains everything, they’re wrong. Life is just too complex to be put in a box. Even God, when he was teaching us reality, gave us a bunch of stories without a tidy end. So anyone who says, “I know just what God is like” or “This is the philosophy of life you should live”—they have had to ignore so much of reality so they could fit what was left in their box, that the box is worthless.

Crawling Into Another Mind

You can never understand someone else’s opinions until you believe them yourself. You need to see each person as a system of belief, and then climb into their mind, accepting everything they think without criticism. Then, after exploring every part of their belief system, climb back out and compare it with the system you have. They will change you, but your beliefs will be the stronger for the experience.