That statement is made based on a belief system. It is not a universal truth by any stretch of the imagination. It’s patently false on its face and we prove that to ourselves each and every day. We change our minds all the time. I changed my mind half a dozen times over the past hour trying to decide if I would write this diary or not!
So this brings about the question:
If that statement is patently false, then why do so many people continue to believe it’s true? What’s the worst that can happen if minds can be changed?
With your permission, I would like to share my thoughts on that question below the orange curly-cue.
A little over a year ago, I also believed that statement to be true and I have since changed my mind. I have direct experience in recognizing it isn’t true in my own life. It was an individual journey of discovery that I chose to embark upon and I’d like to share some of what I personally discovered with whoever decides to read this. It’s also important for me to note right up front that I hold no negative judgment towards anyone who chooses to believe that minds cannot be changed. I get it. I just no longer choose to believe it.
When it comes to belief systems, it’s always about choice. Often times, people choose a particular view because some fear of the alternative drives them to it to the point where they are convinced there is no other alternative. Now whether that fear is derived from something they’ve been taught or something they’ve experienced directly, only the individual can say. However, the process of discovery and understanding the belief is still essentially the same.
We derive our belief systems from almost the moment we come into this world. Every person has a unique life experience upon which to decide what they believe. Many beliefs gather energy as more people decide one way or the other “Ok, this is how it is. Next.” And that particular belief then becomes a collective one.
As we grow and age, the sphere of influence and experience gets larger as we start bumping into belief systems from other collectives we hadn’t been aware of before. Usually we have time to process them in a rational manner so we can choose which side of an argument feels best to us. And we keep going. If we stay still, our bubbles of comfort and reality take a stronger hold on us and many of the deeper belief systems we don’t even consciously think about anymore lay dormant and untested.
The introduction of the internet has ramped up exponentially the level to which belief systems from around the world are now bumping and crashing into each other. Holding tight to those beliefs because we feel helplessly out of control is a normal response for anyone! Most of the time we don’t even know why we have such strong feeling of angst and fear and rage and despair. They just seem to come out of nowhere as we start to see daily all of the effects around the world of clashing belief systems.
It continues to manifest itself by seemingly more and more chaos “out there” and that in turn amplifies our own “in here” fears to the point where we just feel helpless to do anything about it. We feel we are losing control and that is a terrifying thing for anyone.
But it doesn’t have to be… When I reached that point, it took a few months for me to accept that I couldn’t change the world. I couldn’t get everyone to see things the way I did. At first, I took some pleasure in deflecting it back with ego-oriented ideas like “people are stupid”, “they’ll get what they deserve”, “they’re evil”, etc. After that got tiring and I still felt shitty, I advanced to the “Fuck it” stage. That’s when things got interesting…
I was tired of being miserable. So I decided to have fun. I decided to stop playing along with many of life’s commonly accepted inanities that I didn’t really believe in. When people started talking about pot, I stopped saying I only smoked it occasionally to heartily admitting that I smoke it often and find it to be quite therapeutic in my experience. If a manager asked me to do something, I questioned the reasons why rather than just blindly doing it while brimming with rage at how stupid he was. When a homeless man asked me for money in exchange for a poem, I saw it as a fair exchange rather than sticking my nose up and walking away.
I could go on and on, there are a multitude of ways that we can follow our hearts instead of our fears. Start small and see where it leads. We were all blessed with a built in guidance system that gravitates towards love instead of fear. The fear is there as a method to show us, if we choose to pay attention, that there is a belief system we hold that no longer works for us. It’s up to us to figure it out. Sometimes those belief systems are biggies… like the ones ingrained when we were kids or the ones that have protected us somehow in the past. It can be a challenge, absolutely, but it’s a challenge worth taking on in my humble opinion.
I’m not here to claim it’s easy. I’m here to claim it’s easier than you may think and we don’t need to be afraid to go within ourselves to find some answers. I happen to be a living, breathing example of the truth that minds can indeed be changed because I have succeeded on many fronts in changing mine. As a result, I am beginning to see a change in the bubble of influence that surrounds me now. True change begins within and then radiates outward.
I stopped trying to challenge other belief systems and instead decided to address my own. I am nowhere close to being done either! That’s a pretty large onion to peel for all of us. But in my experience so far, it’s absolutely worth it. My perspective on so many things has altered dramatically in the past year and for the better.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi really was onto something there... ;)
Thank you DailyKos for providing an outlet all of these years to share myself with the rest of you. It’s been a blessing in disguise on this journey of life I’m on.
