Change Your Mind...

Listening to a podcast from "You Are Not So Smart" this morning at the gym about hypocrisy. Or more correctly about how people don't think they are being hypocrites because they don't remember that they used to think something else.

Really weird right?

But it was all about how beliefs shift and change and because memory is so flexible we don't remember that we used to think something different. We truly believe that what we think right now is what we have always thought. What we believe is what we have always believed. That we are the staunch morally certain pillars of life.

I say we in the general here. Because I'm not in that we. I know that what I believe right now would have been anathema to what I believed growing up. And because I know that I shifted so drastically then I know that I still shift now. It's actually something that I rail against here and in conversation all the time. When you learn new things you should change your mind. Disregarding facts because they don't support your opinions is horrific. People need to think more and feel less.

It made me wonder if that position was unique to people who had a giant shift in beliefs like I did. I cannot say that I have always believed the same things because I know that's not true. I know that I believed that being gay was a choice. I know that even after I started to doubt that it was a choice, it took awhile for the new belief that it's how you are born to take root. And that even after I believed that, my belief in marriage equality lagged behind. Things that nobody would ever doubt I believe in now, strongly and passionately and unwaveringly, I wavered on for a long time. There are a host of other things just like that. Spanking children for instance.

So is it just because I had a foundational shift in what I believed that I am okay with changes now? And that I recognize that we all are hypocrites sometimes? 

It was an interesting podcast to listen to, I recommend their whole series I listen on Castbox on my phone, by the way.  But anyway, this was an interesting one for sure. It will hopefully make me less frustrated when I see someone who has clearly shifted their position but is acting like they've always felt that way. I will try my best to remember that they really think they have. That they would be shocked to be presented Tim Russert style with a quote from them saying something different. And hopefully it will also open up a lot of other minds to the fact that change is good and normal. That when we know more things we believe different things.

I'm not a flip flopper, I'm a constant learner.

I'm not indecisive, I'm flexible.

When I know better, I do better. (Thank you. Ms. Angelou)