Questioning Beliefs

Have you ever questioned your beliefs?

Why do I think this?

Why am I certain that it’s true?

To be honest, it’s kind of a difficult exercise especially when you have to admit a belief isn’t even your belief.

It’s someone else’s that you picked up and hey, maybe it’s served you well…

But then that elicits the question, are any of our beliefs unique?

Honestly, I don’t think so.

I can’t think of one belief or idea that someone has told me that’s completely new.

Maybe it’s my first time hearing it, so it’s new in my reality.

But chances are someone else told them that, or they got it from somewhere else.

You know the saying, there’s nothing new under the sun.

Maybe the way we articulate it is new and different, drawing comparisons and metaphors that someone hasn’t thought of before.

But for the idea itself, more than likely we can go to the stoics, the bible, really any ancient form of wisdom and find someone saying the exact same thing in a different way.

So I don’t think the question “Are my beliefs unique?” is helpful in any regard…

Unless you want to be a special unique snowflake, then by all means go believe that the president should be a cat or something stupid like that.

I think a better question to ask is, “Are my beliefs serving me?”

I think in order to answer that question, you need to know what you believe in the first place…

And honestly, that’s a little bit more difficult than you would think.

To list out all of your beliefs isn’t an easy task.

And then to ask “devil’s advocate” style questions to see how your beliefs hold up against an argument is even more difficult.

I was thinking about this no more than an hour ago.

One of my beliefs that I hold is that people will respect you more if you’re in really good shape…

But then I looked at 3 people I really respect, all of their opinions mean the world to me…

None of them are in really good shape.

And I took 3 people who are in really good shape…

I don’t really respect them at all.

But then there are some people who are in really good shape that I do respect.

Okay, so this belief doesn’t hold true in every circumstance…

But what belief does?

If you give me any belief, I can more than likely give you a scenario where it loses all of its weight.

So then what the hell are we doing here Nick?

What is the thesis of this argument?

I’m laughing pretty hard right now because I honestly don’t know where this post is going, I guess wherever my mind goes.

I’m at a point right now in my life, where I really want to know why I believe certain things…

And the only reason I can really come up with is that I want to believe them.

I’m confident that if I believe XYZ I’m going to be living a life that makes me happy.

Do I need more of a reason?

Can it just be that I would like to be jacked?

Does there need to be a “So I can…” statement attached to it?

Maybe it’s just because I’m bored and want to keep myself occupied with something?

Or maybe it’s because I think I’d feel better about myself?

Again, I don’t know.

I try not to write these posts from the perspective of me having all of the answers, it’s more of an exploration.

In my own life, I have this tendency to want to say “I GOT IT!”

“I FIGURED IT OUT!”

Waving my answer in the air while running down the street as if I got a golden ticket…

Only to find myself three weeks later scratching my head saying “yea that’s not it mate…”

So I do my best to leave some room for being wrong…

It’s pretty hard for me because few things in life are as succulent as the sweet feeling of being right…

But overall, I think it’s a good belief to hol-

Wait a minute…