I’m currently reading “The Courage to Be Disliked”, and the authors are talking about the idea of changing ourselves and how we can change our life whenever we feel like it. It says it is only the present moment that matters. He stated that the past doesn’t matter. Is that true? Does the past not really matter? This is worth thinking about (if you want get the whole context of the idea you must read the book, I’m sure you’ll find value in it). When I decided to start learning about nutrition and fitness I didn’t have any background on the subject. One day, I decided to start learning about it. I don’t think it was conscious at the time, I was just following my interests and it turns out I was learning a lot and changing the way I saw the world. Maybe then I didn’t believe people could change their physiques but I was open to the idea enough that I wanted to learn about it.
That’s the whole point isn’t it? Just being open to a new idea. Why wouldn’t we be open to ideas? Why do we try to stick to our world views and rarely try to challenge them? From what I’ve researched and seen in my own life, it is because that world view gives us predictability and identity. When we think the world works one way we expect all the events to follow that pattern, we know how to react to such events, it gives us “order” in the way we think. We are creatures of habit and find comfort in that predictability.
The other reason – identity – also makes sense to me as we often like to be associated with groups – as tribes. Groups are often bound by an ideology, right? I’m not even talking about our friend group, as that can be dictated by our environment, at least while we are younger. But the content we consume on a daily basis and the people we listen to online are determined by ideology. “If X person shares the same point of view as I do, I will listen to them.” We do this with the goal of re-enforcing our beliefs and to learn more about it, thus, make that belief stronger. Having a belief gives meaning to our world.
Changing the way we think and act means we have to shift the people we consume content from and potentially change our friend group. That is not appealing but sometimes it is necessary.
Assume the person you are listening to knows something you don’t.
I don’t like the idea of changing my mind constantly, that makes it seem like I have no idea how the world works and that I am just being influenced by all these people online and I can’t think for myself, nobody likes someone who believes in one thing one day and then changes their mind the next day.
I’m not advocating for that. What I’m saying is that we have to be curious enough to listen to those different worldviews. Just listen. We might learn something. It’s one of the rules in Jordan Peterson’s book 12 rules for life – assume the person you are listening to knows something you don’t.
There have been times when I was arrogant enough to say “this person is wrong about this, I don’t even want to listen to them.” and I shut them out. This attitude blocked personal growth. I think the solution is to listen to them because by listening to the other side of the argument we can find flaws in our own. After all, no argument is perfect and there are points of criticism to all ideas. For example, I am plant-based now but I was raised eating all sorts of food, I was never picky, I ate loads of salads, loads of meat, loads of fish, eggs and ham. One day, I found a video on YouTube with the right combination of thumbnail and title about animal farming and animal ethics that made me click on it and I dispensed 10 min of my time to hear what this guy had to say. It was interesting enough that I kept watching more and more debates about it. I think debates are the best thing ever. I kept eating my meat and living my life as I did, but every now and then I’d watch a vegan advocate debate an animal eater and see each of them raising their points. I shared most of the opinions of the animal eaters, but I was just curious about what points the plant-based person would raise. Long story short – this debates raised strong enough points that made sense to me and aligned with my values so much that I decided to cut down my meat consumption and started doing more intensive research, now, I’ve completely changed my diet and I am 99% plant-based. I don’t like the label of vegan though, and I don’t have anything against people who eat meat.
The same thing happened when I first started learning about personal finance, I didn’t know a thing about investing or budgeting, but I was curious enough about it to listen people talk about it. I thought these were important topics to at least dedicate a percentage of my time becoming educated on it. At least enough so that I could make little shifts on how I lived my life. “If this can benefit my life, it is worth learning about.” For example, I don’t think learning about the mechanics of a train will benefit my life so much so I wouldn’t learn about it, same with engineering, or pollination, or law or paintings or genetics. But that’s my opinion, we can have different opinions on what matters most to us and can benefit our lives. I like learning about practical things that have immediate application in my life.
Putting My Ego To the Side
I think that curiosity is important to move forward. Same when it comes to personal development and world view. I didn’t like it when I was hearing all these successful people telling me everything that was wrong in my life was 100% my fault. But I was open to it. I thought “really? Can this be true? Am I really at fault for everything? Does everything get easier when we take full accountability?” The answer for me was yes. I didn’t like it when I realized I couldn’t save my way up to financial freedom. It scared me. How the hell am I supposed to live a life where I don’t worry about money? Am I supposed to live pay check to pay check? Is that the best way to live? Can I do something about it? All these successful people were telling me things I had never heard of, I had never even thought about it, but instead of shutting it out I thought – let’s learn a bit more about it, there might be something here.
If the potential of learning about the thing can change your whole life forever, it seems a no-brainer to spend 10 hours a week learning about it.
I mean it’s not like we don’t consume content online, might as well consume content that can change our lives. So, what I’ve come to realize throughout the years is that even though we like to stick to our worldviews, if someone wants to offer an alternative, we should take the time to listen to it. If their view makes no sense, we can debate it and it will only reinforce my position, I will have made arguments in my favor and I proved my idea to be the dominant one. However, if the other person raises enough counter-arguments for which I have no answer, I must go home and get more educated on the subject. It doesn’t mean I change my mind right there and then and switch teams. No. It means I back off a little, put my ego to the side, spend the next weeks/months actively learning about it by listening to other people talk about it. I make a commitment to hearing other people. What I like to do is to listen to people raising arguments and counter-arguments. We are always biased, but by removing the ego and acknowledging the other person might know something we don’t we open ourselves up for new knowledge and a changed world view.
I hope you found this post valuable! Stay curious, keep learning, and take responsibility for your life.
Best wishes,
Martim
