It’s very bold of me to say this but I think it is possible that no single thought we hold dearly to our hearts is an original thought. Every thought is a function of something we have heard, seen or experienced in our life at some point. I remember in primary school a teacher telling me that “Two minus three, IT CANT”. Only a few months later to find out it actually can!
As an example I grew up in a homogeneous society where almost everyone I interacted with was of the Christian faith, where homosexuality was illegal and possession of marijuana was a serious offence. Imagine my horror when I arrived at Rhodes University in the year 2000 to find that there are other faiths and religions, that there are people who genuinely do not believe in any God and that there are regular marijuana users with a steady supply network.
Now some things remain unacceptable to me and I will not compromise on them, however, I acknowledge that they are a function of my upbringing. When I was growing up my Dad had a plaque in his study that said “To live as a king, one must work as a slave”. He truly believed it and worked extremely hard as a result. While I support the idea that people do need to work hard in order to succeed there are some people who do live as kings but do not work as slaves. Career paths are shifting from linear input vs output relationships to exponential relationships where the output can significantly exceed the input. As an example, a stock broker may work only for a couple of hours per day, but may be lucky enough to secure a trade that makes them very wealthy. The wealth they create being unrelated to the hours they work.
With all this having been said, the point of this post was just to challenge our thinking and be open to changing our minds. When new information becomes available it is crazy to hold onto untested long held beliefs. There is no shame in someone changing their mind about something when they realise that there could be a better way or different way to manage the world around them. We have seen in many cases a very small subset of what the rest of the world has to offer. As the world starts to reveal itself to us, let’s be open to changing our minds.
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