Beliefs exist as elements of thought. They’re not real. You can’t touch a belief or capture one in a jar. While there may very well be some basis of fact or reality surrounding a belief, what you believe about the world around you is nothing more –or less– than electrical brain impulses representing personal interpretations of experiences you’ve had.
I write to challenge those assumptions and to help my readers question their personal status quo. The subject can be serious or whimsical, trivial or substantive. Regardless, the focus always follows my personal zeitgeist of asking,
Why do we do it this way –and– why do we believe what we do?
Being heavily invested in a belief or idea doesn’t necessarily mean the idea is wrong. It’s just an indication that you are ignoring evidence which could prove you wrong in the future. Isn’t it better to challenge your assumptions and discover you’ve been right all along, than to hold steadfastly to a tenet that could lead to a slippery slope of bad decisions?
I believe –at least for the present time– that my purpose is to help people question their status quo; to lead an exploration outside their intellectual and philosophical comfort zone. To boldly take them, as Captain James T. Kirk so famously intoned, “where no man has gone before.”
Richard Rohr, the author of Falling Upward, wrote about those who hold too firmly to their beliefs as tending, “to love the past more than the present or the future.”
Curious — have you ever changed a long-held belief or assumption? What led you to the new conclusion?
My faith in Jesus has grown over the years but my faith in pastors, priests and popes has been greatly reduced in the past ten years.
My assumption that a college degree guarantees a good paying job and career has significantly been abandoned in the past 15 years.
So, to answer your question, yes long-held beliefs and assumptions do change.