The Virtue Nobody Talks About
We celebrate conviction. We admire people who stand firm under pressure, who know what they believe and don't waver. Consistency is seen as strength, and changing one's mind is often treated as weakness — as flip-flopping, as caving.
But I've come to think that changing your mind, done honestly, is one of the most underrated and difficult things a person can do. It requires something far harder than stubbornness: it requires genuine openness, a willingness to be wrong, and the humility to say so out loud.
Why We Resist Updating Our Views
The psychological forces working against us are significant. Our beliefs are tangled up with our identities — to abandon a position can feel like abandoning part of ourselves. There's also the social cost: admitting you were wrong invites scrutiny, sometimes ridicule.
And then there's what psychologists call confirmation bias — our tendency to notice and remember information that supports what we already believe, while dismissing evidence that challenges it. We're not neutral processors of information. We're advocates for our existing worldview.
What Changing Your Mind Well Actually Looks Like
Not all mind-changing is equal. There's a difference between:
- Capitulating — changing your view because someone pressured you, or because it became socially uncomfortable to hold it.
- Genuine updating — changing your view because new evidence, a better argument, or a deeper consideration gave you good reason to.
The first is spinelessness. The second is intellectual integrity. The challenge is that they can look identical from the outside — and sometimes feel similar from the inside too.
Questions Worth Asking Yourself
When you feel your view shifting, these questions can help you understand whether you're genuinely updating or simply yielding:
- What specifically changed my mind — a new fact, a new argument, or social pressure?
- Could I articulate what I used to believe, and why, to someone else?
- Could I articulate my new position, and the reasons for it, just as clearly?
- Would I hold this new view if no one ever knew I changed it?
Making It a Practice
I've started keeping a loose record of views I've changed — not publicly, just for myself. It's a useful exercise. Looking back, I can see patterns: the areas where I've been genuinely open, and the areas where I've been suspiciously consistent, perhaps too much so.
Being willing to change your mind doesn't mean having no convictions. It means holding those convictions lightly enough to examine them honestly when the evidence warrants it. It means being more committed to truth than to being right.
That's harder than it sounds. But I think it's worth practising.