- Joined
- Oct 19, 2020
- Posts
- 2,986
- Reaction
- 1,288
- Points
- 1,005
Today, if you have some time I would like you to think about all the things, all the beliefs, all the opinions you hold now and to go through them as they come up, perhaps, and think about how long you've been holding those beliefs and opinions. How long it's been since they have first formed. Because often, we form a belief and then we just hold on to it even if it doesn't quite make sense to even us anymore. Let alone be in touch with reality.
[And] Socrates said:
"an unexamined life is a life not worth Iiving"
And, what he meant by that was exactly that if we don't examine our opinions our beliefs our behaviors, we often come into conflict and we often believe in things that are outdated - not only by science or things like that but even by our own personal ideas - that have been forming since then.
But because we've never missed it out they're still there and they're still influencing us on some level and we just don't know why we're confused.
You can think of it as an analogy of walking into a room and seeing everything every single toy every single object that you've ever owned from childhood. From being born.
Almost none of that stuff will have any appeal to you now. I mean a Rattle and a little crate, little toys, dinosaurs, action figures, Barbies, whatever you used to own. You might pick them up and say "oh, I remember this." You know this was a nicetoy. "I loved this" or whatever. But you would never take it home with you and and play with it, use it every day. Not most of them anyway.
Wouldn't you have? Either you were forced to, or just you did ityourself. It's no longer with you. It's no longer in your current house. You don't sleep with it anymore. You don't pretend that they're real. You don't pretend to have them battle or to have them meet for lunch, right?
And it's the exact same thing with ideas and beliefs. And it should be a point of pride to not have the same beliefs we used to have when we were 16, 20, 25 whatever it may be. The best one of the best things you can do for yourself, is to learn so much and to improve your knowledge or your skills to a point where every year you seem to look back at the year before and almost be embarrassed about how ignorant you were about how little you knew. About how..how mistaken you were.
That's a great thing because it means you've improved so much that whatever skill you already had or whatever idea you already had before, whatever belief, opinion, behavior.. it's just so much better now that you're almost embarrassed and you don't need to be embarrassed but it's almost like it's ridiculous how silly it was. If you can think that, about the year before on any given topic, you've done something very, very right.
However when you look around most people are not proud of that. They're actually proud of having held the belief, having been doing the same exact thing for a long time. They feel that if you give up a certain Behavior or idea or opinion, that, you admit fault that you've been wrong. All this time and you wasted your life you wasted your time with this and so they not only do not examine themselves which is bad enough, but when it's pointed out - again maybe something scientific even - they just won't have it. Because that would mean that they're somehow defeated. And that again being the opposite of the best attitude you could have is the worst attitude you could have about anything. You should feel pride and joy in finding out that you were wrong.
Because now you're not [wrong] anymore and that's great. The sooner the better, right?
"An unexamined life is a life not worth living"
And this goes with everything. It goes with relationships, with skills in a job ,and also think of it that way if you have a technical job or something that needs that experiences a lot of innovation. You keep up with that. You find it to be a source of pride to keep yourself up to date to always be on The Cutting Edge. To let go of things that no longer serve the purpose. And you want to be as fresh and as informed and as consistent with your other beliefs and your other skills in that job as much as you can.
But for some reason again when we walk out of the job when we come home, we interact with our family or friends. We don't have that. We stick to what we think is a tradition of belief a tradition of a behavior. And to give that up would be wrong. It would be shameful.
But no. In anything and everything, examine it and make sure that it holds up. And that's another thing examining, sometimes does not mean finding anything wrong with it.
Let's say you examine a belief and you find that you just no longer believe in it. Just in your own mind. You can do this about most things because it's just your opinion. No one can tell you what to do and subject it to examination.
"is this still correct?"
"do I still still feel this way?"
"do I want to act this way?"
"do I would I like it if other people acted this way and believe this way?"
and, "does it really profit me, the intellectual the mind, the highest part of myself?" or "does it benefit some bodily pleasure?"
And if the answer is yes, it's still is, proper to me and it benefits me and it's correct and I believe in it and I have faith in it that's perfect that's great...
Keep going.
It's just as great to find out that,
"no it's not current anymore."
"it's wrong now.." And to let go of it. It's just as good because now you're up to date. Either you already were or you are now, and you've done this to yourself this is great..
Again, look back a year, two years however for you need to go, until you find how silly you were about something and then imagine. And it's not just an imagination most likely. It's actually true that you now hold beliefs and do things that you're gonna feel just as silly about.
But you won't find it out until you examine them until then you will walk around like that and you don't want that
"An unexamined life is a life not worth living"
Last edited:
