I used to hate rap music.
Why? No clue. I think I heard a pretty terrible rap song, way back when, and made it a point thereafter to sigh and change the channel every time a rap song came on the radio. It’s easy, in south Texas, to tune in solely to classic rock and country music, and for the majority of my teenage years that’s all I did.
Which is stupid. To say I regret it would be a pretty colossal understatement, actually. Why did I do that? Why did I shut the door on an entire genre of music because of one bad song?
Here’s the way I look at it. Let’s say you have a door with the words “Rap Music” carved into the wood. Open this door and you’ll see something incredible: thousands of doors as far as the eye can see, each dedicated to a different style of rap itself. Open one of those style doors and you’ll see fields upon fields of more doors for every artist within that facet of the genre. Open those doors and you see — well, you get the idea.
Rap music, I’ve come to learn, encompasses a staggering variety of things. Some of it’s amazing. Some of it’s not. But what happens when you say “I hate rap music”? What happens when you let one bad experience turn you away from an entire part of life?
Or, to go back to the analogy: what happens when you close the door on rap?
You shut yourself off from life.
You’re not shutting rap off from you. You’re shutting the door on a huge part of life and denying yourself so much as a result. That might be the worst part — you don’t even know what you’re missing. You closed the door, sealed it up tight, and cut yourself off from so many things that could enrich your life.
Is rap music going to change my life? Probably not. But closing the door on it, as I did, cut me off from the thousands upon thousands of doors behind it, too, turning what was a “mild distaste” for a particular kind of music into something with far bigger consequences. And there’s another problem, too: association. As a teen, I didn’t just reject rap — I rejected anything that sounded like it. I’d try half-heartedly to see the appeal, but I still couldn’t enjoy most of the popular music on the radio.
That might sound familiar. What do you hate? What little facet of life makes you roll your eyes, sigh, and try to ignore it? Antiques? Sports? Fashion shows?
The analogy doesn’t change. There could be something incredible behind those doors, but by hating, by ignoring, you never have the opportunity to discover what it is. And by refusing to crack the door open just a little and peak inside, you’re carrying a negativity that expands way beyond its origin. It doesn’t stop at rap, in other words, and it probably won’t stop at whatever you “hate” too.
Never close the door on life.
We all do it, intentionally or not, and deprive ourselves of possibility — of something amazing, of something that could brighten your day like you wouldn’t believe. Breaking the habit, then, requires a special kind of mindfulness, a constant vigilance to expand your mind as far as you can.
But what if the door is already closed?
OPENING THE DOOR
It’s not easy. So let’s break it down, step by step, and see if we can’t encourage you to take another look at something you’ve always ignored.
1. Think about it.
What do you hate? It doesn’t even have to be a full-blown angry-hate, either. I’m thinking of the way I “hated” rap, where I was foolish enough to assume I would never like it.
What parts of life have you shut the door on it? Make a list. It doesn’t have to be long. Just think about it long enough to get a good feel for what you’ve been missing out on.
2. Think about it some more!
Why do you hate it? Is it for something silly, or are there legitimate reasons for you to dislike this thing? If it’s the latter, then that might be a bit beyond the scope of this article. If it’s the former, however — and I’m willing to bet it is — then admit to yourself, right this instant, that you don’t have a great reason for disliking it.
Me? I didn’t have a legitimate reason for ‘hating’ reality TV. I just thought Survivor was kind of stupid, back when it first hit the air, and managed to ignore everything that followed. That’s not smart. That’s senseless ignorance, and I can only imagine what I’ve missed out on for carrying the grudge.
Admitting that helps. Speaking from experience, it is so much easier to give something a second chance when you recognize that you never really gave it a first.
3. Try to find the good.
This is the hard part.
Dig through YouTube. Talk to a friend who passionately loves the thing you hate. Just do something — anything — to find the good in what you thought was bad. That’s far easier said than done, of course, and it’s probably going to seem impossible at first. When you’ve carried negativity for so long, finding something that changes your mind — that undos the “I hate” and the “I don’t really like” — might be a gargantuan challenge.
So here’s a different idea: don’t do it. Don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what you might have missed. Don’t spend hours trying to find the greatest rap song of all time (already done it, thanks!). Just be happy to know that you might stumble across something great one day, and that you’ll be well-equipped to appreciate it when you do.
4. Don’t expect something magical to happen.
Am I going to start digging through Survivor’s back catalogue? Nope.
Frankly speaking, I don’t have time to go back through it all. I doubt I ever will. But I can make one change, right here and now, and still be happy: I can ease the door open a bit. I can know, now, that I won’t just sigh and change the channel if I ever come across reality TV again. I can know that I might not like what I see — and that’s okay.
That’s normal. There are things I like and don’t like about the parts of life I love, so why would reality TV be any different? The key, I think, is to keep the door open — to keep my mind open, and to be happy knowing that pointless negativity isn’t keeping me from enjoying any part of life.
That’s another way to look at it: you’re expanding your life. You’re widening the pool of things that can help you, change you, or just entertain you, and you’re giving yourself even more opportunities to learn something new.
But here’s the thing: you won’t know unless you try. You can continue on your life unchanged, refusing to budge an inch, but why would you? Why, when you have nothing to lose and at least something to gain, would you not give it a chance?
And hey! If nothing else, you can always give rap music another chance. I did. I’ve eased the door open, now, and started digging around inside. I’ve found some pretty terrible music. But I’ve also found one of my favorite artists of all time, a musician who has written a song that speaks to me — to my emotions — better than any I’ve ever heard.
Again: what do you have to lose?
Never close the door.
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6 Comments »
I'm a writer, minimalist, and health dork with three goals in mind: to teach you how to lose weight, move more, and be happier by living a simple, natural life. It works. Like what you read here? Get 3NL delivered straight to your inbox!
Good post. Something to really think about…and I plan to. Thanks!
(Btw, what is the greatest rap song?)
Thanks, Todd!
I knew somebody would ask me about it. I still haven’t found it yet.
But check your Twitter! I’ll send you a tweet with a link to one of my favorite songs that I found when I opened the door a bit.
Matt
I agree with you on not closing the door but at the same time there are things that we just do not like. I am not a hater as it takes too much of my energy to hate. I have to think about it, put effort towards it and I carry it with me like a monkey on my back. Too much to baggage with hate.
Now I do dislike but I tend to ignore it. I am not a big fan of reality tv. Ok I have a few guilty pleasures (biggest loser and apprentice; ok sometimes what not to wear, Kendra and Holly’s show too as it is here in vegas) but I turn the tv on to watch the shows that I want to and then it goes off and stays off. I do watch a lot of sports though.
I keep doors open until I find that I am feeling negativity towards them so then I close them. Simple minded maybe but I did try them when the door was open but had to shut them as we are not going to like everything, not going to accept everything.
Great to meet ya and spend some time hangin out on the site. I will stick around.
@SuzanneVara
Hey Suzanne!
That’s the truth, I think: some doors just won’t open. I think it’s worth a shot to try and understand why it’s closed in the first place (and then take steps to ease it open), but I know that’s not always possible for any number of reasons. There’s a style of music (I don’t even know the name of it) that I just can’t stand no matter how many times I try, so there you go.
And you’re still keeping doors open until you find negativity towards them, which I think is far better than most. Sure, I want to like everything, but just deciding to hate or dislike things less often is a pretty bold step too. And, er, probably more realistic.
Thanks for swinging by! A pleasure to meet you too.
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