Stop for a second and ask yourself: ‘How hard is it to actually change someone’s mind?’

Personally, I think it can be pretty damn hard.

The central problem seems to be that, once we have publicly stated any kind of opinion it instantly becomes part of our psychological identity – something that the ego will rush in to defend with the frenzied passion of a wounded Siberian mongoose.

When we feel attacked or threatened in this manner, our knee-jerk reaction is to close down all outside inputs as we ever more frantically seek the certainty and opioid-like relief of ‘being right’.

Which is why, by subconsciously equating being proven wrong with actual damage to our psyche, we are substantively slowing the pace at which we can evolve our ideas.

Changing one’s mind demands humility.

It’s one of the reasons I write.  When I think something may be true, I don’t actually know how I feel about it until I have caged it on the page and am able to regard it objectively; a crystalline structure of thought, able to be rotated thru space and viewed from more than one angle

More often than not, once I have written it out I will see flaws and gaps that were not previously apparent; sometimes small, sometimes glaring, sometimes completely invalidating.

Being subject to no-one but myself at this point, I then have the choice of either: working out the wrinkles and refining the proposition, or disregarding the idea altogether.

Writing my ideas down is a way for me to bypass the ego.

Changing our minds, both in private and in public, is a noble and luxurious act, unsung and unappreciated in our time.  As our guiding ideas and principles evolve, so then, do we.  This is The Real Work.

I hope it finds you well.

Much love,

J

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