THE DANGER IN CHANGING OUR MINDS

All of us have strong opinions on a variety of subjects. We hold them dearly and we hold them tight. We sometimes get into serious arguments when we come up against another who totally disagrees with what we believe. Sometimes those arguments lead to some kind of violence as what happened during the run up to and, sadly and tragically after, the recent presidential election.  Sometimes they lead to division in that we no longer speak to the other or have anything to do with the other.

I suspect we’ve all been there or have at least been in the position of almost being there, again, as in the election process. We find it hard to believe the other does not believe to be true what we believe to be true, but the other does. And, if we think about it, vice versa. The reason we get into those arguments in the first place is that we come into contact with someone who doesn’t believe as we do and who cannot understand why we believe what we do. Really? Well, yes. The solution is to hear each other out and agree to disagree and then avoid the subject in the future.

We can deal with that and we have because we have no other choice if we want to live at peace with one another. No one has a lock on the truth. The really hard part comes when we have to admit that we may be wrong. We have listened to the other and have now changed on minds on something we were convinced was right and now come to be convinced that we were wrong.

That is a dangerous step to take because it might very well mean that we have to change the way we are living and acting. We may have been saying and doing things we once thought were right and have now come to understand that we were in the wrong and that those who thought and acted otherwise were, in fact, in the right. That is a very humbling reality and a very difficult move to make.

It is dangerous because it is difficult. And it is difficult because it is dangerous. We never know what the outcome will be when we encounter a dangerous situation that we cannot avoid. Yes, when that happens, we can refuse to admit that we are wrong. That may seem the easy part. But then we have to live with constantly knowing we are living a lie. That is a dangerous way to live because our lies eventually come back to get us.

We live this life based on our convictions and even assumptions. We have learned to accept that things we assumed to be true were not. We acknowledge that reality and move on. But when something we are convinced is true turns out to be false and when we have been living under those false beliefs, we have a choice to make and, again, a difficult and dangerous one.

Thankfully, that does not happen very often. But when it does, do we really have a choice about what to do as difficult and even dangerous as it might and will be?