The first title that came to my head was largely inappropriate... I'll use this one instead

It's supposed to be Day 2 of the 30 day meme and I'm supposed to talk about something I love about myself. It's not that I don't think I'm fabulous, because I think the fact that I have a certain degree of narcissism is evident by the fact that I write this blog.

It's just hard to really narrow it down to one thing.

I jest. No, I typically don't toot my own horn but there is one thing I really do love about myself.

I'm pretty open minded. I really do try to look at things from all angles before making decisions. I try not to judge people based on first impressions or initial reactions. Sometimes this bites me in the ass, but typically I think it serves me well.

Open mindedness, however, also leads to a lot of analysis* about things that a lot of people take for granted. Big issues like religion and education and morality and small issues like whether strawberries might taste good on pizza (not bad, actually).

Some times it's a pain in the ass to be open minded. It often puts me on the other side of the fence in social situations and it forces me to really think before I make decisions. Open mindedness is often time consuming (maybe that's my time-management issue).

I can remember back to the first presidential election I was able to vote in. It was 1996 and my sophomore year of college. My friends were hugely liberal and were all voting for Clinton. I chose not to think and voted for Dole because he fell off the stage in California during a campaign event. (I've always had a thing for injured animals, too.) That, and my dad told me to vote for him. In fact, I remember sitting on the phone with my father as he told me what answers to put on my absentee ballot.

Hey, at least I voted. Or... my dad did... twice. Our two votes didn't help poor old Bob Dole, though.

Now that I'm older, elections require eons of thought. I research everything until I'm bleary eyed and I'm not sure I even end up making better decisions. My votes will span the entire gambit of political parties because I research the candidates directly. My dad still gives me his insight and I take it to heart, but now those votes are truly my own. It seems pointless, honestly, as I wait for the results on election nights as though I'm waiting to see if the team I bet money on is winning. Generally, I'm disappointed by the results, but if my parents ever taught me anything it was that not voting wasn't even an option.

Being open minded hasn't always turned out for the best, however. I've come to the defense of more than one person who I felt was being bullied only to find out in a short amount of time that they were quite deserving of every bit of ass they had handed to them. Nothing like being made to look like an idiot by another idiot.

In most cases, the fact that I can see things from a different angle has given me a greater perspective and I'm pretty happy with the results. I have friends that I might not have had because of it and I think people probably value my opinions because they know I've given them some thought before spouting them off. I may just be inferring that last point, though.

Sometimes it leads me down some interesting roads of thought, but that's usually a fun journey. And it's always fun to listen to the reactions I get when I take people down those interesting roads.

*Did you know that analyzation isn't a word? At least blogger doesn't think so. I guess that's a non-word of the day. Heh.