Open-mindedness is an excellent quality to possess. It literally means to be receptive to different ideas and arguments. In my opinion, open-mindedness is the ability to comprehend both sides of a story. This is best exemplified in an original fable engendered by me. It starts as many classic fables do:

Once upon a time there were two children, delinquents in their own right, named Hansel and Gretel. They would go day after day into the forest, starting fires and beleaguering the animals. One day, however, they stumbled too far into the forest, unable to orient themselves in their surroundings. As luck would have it, they came upon a small house. Fraudulent as they were, Hansel and Gretel broke into the house and raided the refrigerator.

Little to Hansel and Gretel's knowledge, however, the owner of the house, a world-famous Nobel Prize-winning child therapist, was on her way home. When she entered her home, she found the two amateur thieves eating her food and going through her belongings. She tried to reason with them; she even cooked them a turkey dinner. As she opened the oven door to check on the turkey, Hansel pushed her inside.

When the police arrived, the two children fabricated a nebulous story; they claimed that her house was made out of candy, that she was a witch, and had tried to kill them. While the nice lady was only trying to save these children from recidivism, Hansel and Gretel ruined her reputation and became the local heroes. There have been multitudinous stories about Hansel and Gretel; however, they are the phantasms of the children, which they created to avoid prosecution.

This could be the correct version of the fable. It is just as believable as the accepted version; there is no propensity toward one or the other. It is essential to keep an open mind at all times, because something that may seem genuine could turn out to be specious. Open-mindedness is a good character trait to possess; whether this trait is applied to a personal problem or a social issue, it is still good to know both sides of the story. 1