In the 1999 Kevin Smith classic, "Dogma" there is a scene in which the 13th Apostle (played by Chris Rock) is explaining to the protagonist that building beliefs on top of ideas is dangerous and complicated, because changing an idea is easy, but changing a belief is "trickier."
This concept came up in last Friday's Connecting the Dots webinar, when my fellow panelist mentioned the issue, and I laughed that I have a bumper sticker on the back of my car that says: "Don't believe everything you think."
In our normal daily lives, I don't think most of us make this distinction, but it's actually a very important one to consider: most of the things we believe are based on an underlying thought process.
We often internalize the downstream belief and then find ourselves in a quagmire when presented with evidence to the contrary. Our overly-partisan media consumption plays to this confirmation bias, by reinforcing beliefs through providing supporting evidence that goes out of its way to never directly challenge anything.
I certainly understand why that is appealing. Feeling bolstered makes us feel safe and it helps us identify our tribe, and in this time of chaos and uncertainty, most of us are eager to feel a sense of safety wherever possible. But we don't typically grow from inside our comfort zone.
One of the best benefits I have found in three-years of gradually more committed meditation has been the ability to start noticing the small space that exists between what I think and what I believe -- and be a little bit better able to wedge the two apart to start changing my attachment to ideas I once used to cling to. But it all starts with the same question: Does this belief serve the life I am trying to build?
If the answer is anything except an emphatic YES, then consider the following questions:
This also happens to be at the heart of what Lawrence and I discussed on last week's episode of Grow or Die: Reframing. As I mentioned in the episode, for me art has been a powerful force for me looking at things in new ways. But sometimes it is up to us to do this heavy lifting on our own.
I've got a couple of upcoming live events, for anyone interested in joining:
