What do you believe? Are you willing to fight for what you believe in? Are you right for what you believe? Am I wrong to challenge your beliefs?
It is incredible just how emotional we can be when our beliefs are challenged. Wars have been fought, and lives have been lost defending our challenging beliefs. What are we fighting about?
Beliefs are merely opinions that we are unwilling to change.
Once our ego takes hold of our beliefs, we become more resistant to changing them. These beliefs, once defended over time, become part of our identity, and we just cannot let them go without giving up a significant piece of who we believe we are.
To avoid confrontation, we seek to find those who share similar beliefs with us. We crave for our beliefs to be validated, so, we open ourselves up to like-minded people so that our egos get fed, and our opinions get solidified.
When we surround ourselves with those who believe the same as us, we stop growing.
While people of the same worldview perceive that they become more powerful in numbers, the power is fleeting in that each individual becomes weaker minded. If you are rooted in your beliefs and those around you share those same beliefs, then how can you ever form your own identity and opinion. Breaking away from the beliefs of the herd then becomes nearly impossible.
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Well said!
I recently read some scientific studies on this. You are absolutely right. The moral of the articles I read is that we are way more interested in having our opinions validated (boosting our ego) than being open or on the side of truth. As we talk, rather than truly listen with an open mind, even while others are talking, we are actively looking for any tidbits of proof supporting our point. It explains what is happening to our neighbours to the south on their opinion of their leader. The more they discuss their leader, the more they anchor in their own side.
I have met very few people in this lifetime with the skill of active listening with presence and reflection before responding. The real question is how does one foster this type of active listening.
Thank you for your response! It is natural to want to be validated. Deep down, we have a need to be a part of a tribe for our survival. We cannot survive (as much as we would want to believe) on our own. The problem now is, we are addicted to social media and are being duped into believing that virtual relationships are our tribe! We are being validated more than ever before because we are targeted for our opinions.
We can all listen with intention to learn, we do it very early in our childhood, it’s just that over time we become protective of our worldviews and those of the people around us, because we want to continue to be validated and accepted in our tribe.
To answer your question, it is somewhat unnatural to be an active listener and be completely open to accept all worldviews. We have to buck our need to be validated, accepted and turn down our ego, but that is not a bad thing. It is evolution, and it takes great practice, willingness to err and great patience to evolve.