Listening keeps your mind young

You can accumulate experience and use it to understand better or to shut out anything new. In the second case, every conversation becomes an occasion to repeat what you already know. Listening to people of a different age, culture, or profession widens your repertoire of questions. It does not force you to accept every idea, but it prevents mistaking familiarity for truth and custom for the only possibility. Inner youth does not depend on following trends. It is recognized in the capacity to be surprised, to revise an opinion, and to discover unused talents. Whoever listens stays in motion. They can hold firm convictions without turning them into a wall against all learning.