Are you willing to change?
Are you willing to give up long-held beliefs when you see new evidence?
I think most people would say they are willing, but are they really? Too often we go with confirmation bias, only listening to those who agree with us. In this video I share with you an idea from the Roman Emperor and Stoic, Marcus Aurelius. It is one that can help you as you face new evidence and new ideas that are counter to what you knew before.
Please subscribe and let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.
Terry
TerryBrock.com
+1-407-363-0505
Terry@TerryBrock.com
Here’s a transcript for your enjoyment also. Yes, it is not perfect but it is something that can help as you follow along.
My thanks to the good people at Zoom for making this available. Please leave a comment and share this with your community so others can benefit. Thank you!
Terry Brock
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Hi, this is Terry Brock, I want to share an idea with you that I think is so important for living life fully and living it really
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Too often, people have a position. We all have opinions about different topics but sometimes we just want to hold on to it.
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And then no matter what someone else says we become more entrenched in our own position. We’re going to defend it. We feel like, Hey, I’ve got to do this. And when we’re oh here’s something real problem today.
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People are always going for reading only what is supporting their opinion if you got a political opinion or a business dependent opinion or an opinion about whatever we only read from those
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People those sources that agree with us. That’s called confirmation bias, you know, we’re watching only certain kinds of news and, you know,
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I can really lead to a problem. I think we see that in our world today. It’s good thing to be able to be a little more open minded and understand what’s there. But I think something even better than that.
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Is a statement that I saw from Marcus Aurelius. Now he’s one of the storks one of those people that live long ago he happened to be the emperor of Rome.
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Now he wasn’t a perfect guy, he did something wrong. Being emperor of Rome. I think that kind of says it, but he had a lot of wisdom and writing his journal
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He wrote his journal just thinking, hey, nobody’s going to read this but me.
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Well, there was a lot of wisdom in there and we were able to get hold of it, you know, look at it and through the centuries, it has been something that
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wise people have one of the key with them. They wanted to find out. Okay, what did Marcus really say about that. He, along with people like Seneca in Epictetus, and many others.
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Have a lot of wisdom. One of the things he said about this very topic of opinions on that I think was quite profound and matter of fact we pull that up here on the screen for you so you can see it.
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Right here, where he says, If anyone can refute me, show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective.
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I’ll gladly change, it’s the truth. I’m after, and the truth, never harmed anyone what harms us is to persist itself deceit and ignorance.
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I think that’s wisdom. I think what we want to do is make our lives, one that we say I’m going to even put aside what I believe. Right now, even deeply held beliefs philosophy, religion,
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Science, whatever. That’s important. I recall Richard Dawkins talking about a professor. He had once when he was in
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University, and he was studying and his professor had held a certain view on a position of science and had really been well known.
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Saying that they invited a guest lecturer to come over and the guest lecture adequate opposite of you.
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A completely different view than that Professor and so the students are kind of squirming wondering. Oh, what’s the professor going to say
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When the visiting professor sat down for who enter discussion, the professor stood up and said,
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I want to thank you for being here. You have shown me information and new evidence that I did not know about and I am going to have to change my position.
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I think that is a noble thing to do. And something that we all need to do. Hey, first of all, we’ll get along with people a lot better. But secondly, it forces us to concentrate on what is the truth, not what is my position that I need to defend
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You also don’t have to worry as much too because hey, I know I don’t know about you, but I have changed my opinion on a lot of things throughout life. Hey, you should have talked to me when I was 18 I had it all figured out that
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But of course, now I realized, the more I know the more I realize how little I know and how much more I need to know and you know
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That’s part of the fun of it, we get a chance to learn more.
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So I’d love to hear from you. Please share this video with others. I think a lot of people need to hear this message and please share whatever platform you’re getting this on.
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I want to make sure that we can help the world, whether it’s on steam it on YouTube or on my website at Terry Brock calm, by the way, notice, Terry Brock calm.
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And shameless plug there, but I really appreciate you sharing this with others so that they can understand. I think we would have a better world.
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If people were looking at the truth and questioning their own beliefs more rather than feeling entrenched in defending their currently existing ideas, I’m Terry Brock with Terry Brock calm. Thank you very much for joining me.
