The Only Time You Shouldn’t Listen to Your Morals
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash
The complexity of self-awareness requires accountability, and accountability needs compassion from other perspectives and your own. To “see things from another perspective” requires you to silence your beliefs and consider valid counterarguments (along with looking for the opposing validity). Discussing the nuance of self-awareness and being open-minded also means being open to challenging or changing your morale. Holding on to your confidence doesn’t make you a better person. Sometimes it just means you are ignorant.
Get Comfortable With the Uncomfortable
There are always three sides to the story. Yours, theirs and the truth. This statement especially applies to searching for the truth in any scenario. Typically people build their morale based on what they see in life and is heavily influenced by the circumstance they were brought up in. This is why it is difficult for most individuals to change their minds about their morale when they age. Being attached or changing confidence feels like you let yourself down to believe in those beliefs if you are to change them.
The truth is that most of us form this morale during our teenage and young adult years. The problem is that most of us don’t have enough life experience to form firm beliefs. Yet most people still abide by that way of thinking because otherwise, it shatters their perspective. To be open-minded is to be willing to change that perspective. More importantly, it requires the person to admit that they cannot be firm about their beliefs until it is put to the test. It also requires the understanding that people can share the same values as you yet govern their lives entirely differently.
If someone is genuinely open-minded, they will enjoy challenging themselves this way. More importantly, they aren’t afraid to abandon old ways of thinking. It’s easy to be sure about perceptions and how things are understood in your early years of adulthood. In reality, that is just the beginning. Surround yourself with people who don’t share the same lifestyle, and try to be in environments you aren’t regularly part of. This is important because it keeps us humbled and a reminder that there are different ways of existing and there’s no collective “right” way. What’s important is that they are guided by respect, even if that existence doesn’t align with your own.
Why Challenging Beliefs is Important
The Native communities, for centuries, have survived and practiced religious ceremonies using animals, and their survival is based on the consumption of frozen meats. On the contrary, in cities, most vegans argue that they are vegan for animal rights. Does that mean that both groups share different beliefs? The truth is that Native communities live in harmony and have the utmost respect for animals, more than your average city person. This is because they understand the animal hierarchy and have no intentions of disrupting or taking more than they need.
Additionally, the truth behind the vegan movement is more than animal rights. It’s rooted in the manipulation of processed chemicals and the overproduction of food. People that genuinely value veganism participate because it is an act of freedom and revolution against systemic manipulation. So to answer my question, both groups of people love and appreciate animals. This is because both groups aspire for harmony within the system and respect their place in the animal kingdom. Does it mean that one method of living is right over the other? No, because both are doing their best in their circumstances and environment for the greater good.
Conclusion
Overall, having morals reflects a person’s non-negotiables and how they live. Many of us share the same beliefs despite governing our lives differently. It is still possible to respect children and women between two people who share opposing opinions on abortion. In the same way, people can share the same sexual values but practices different sex lives. The best way to explain this is by comparing this to how the average person has expectations of life. We all have certain expectations of how life will go and make an effort for it to work around what we desire. However, the path to the destination is never as predicted, except the goal is always achieved.
