Are Your Windows Clean?
April 25, 2020
A newly married couple moves into a new neighborhood. On the first day after setting up the house, the woman notices her neighbor hanging dirty laundry.
” I wonder why our neighbor is hanging dirty laundry,” she says to her husband.
“Maybe I should teach her how to wash her laundry “
The husband listens quietly to what his wife is saying.
This same thing happens for a few days. The lady next door comes out to hang her laundry, and the wife keeps commenting about the dirty laundry to her husband.
Then one day, the wife notices that the neighbor has hung clean laundry. She excitedly goes to her husband and says, ” It looks like someone has finally taught our neighbor how to wash her laundry properly.”
“I am not sure about that. This morning I certainly woke up early and cleaned our windows.” says the husband.
Most times, it is our perspective that is flawed, but without even realizing it, we assume the problem is somewhere else.
Our beliefs and mental models are the windows of our minds. Everything that we see and experience is through the Windows of our mental models. Like real windows that get dirty, our beliefs and mental models can also get stained and have to be cleaned regularly.
We need to scrub our windows every once in a while, or the truth won’t come in.
