There is a difference between conviction and captivity.
When our beliefs are challenged, we tend to dig in…hunker down…protecting those beliefs with well intentioned and well rehearsed arguments. Many of our beliefs are generations deep! They matter to us. They’re a part of us. But all too often, these discussions unwittingly invite raised voices, hurt feelings, and sharpened certainty.
Knowing we’re right…our certainty…is precious. But there is something stronger than certainty.
Security.
If something is true, it doesn’t require your fear to survive. In fact, it doesn’t need you at all. It stands because it’s true.
The tide does not rise because you insist it does. The sun doesn’t set because you believe it does. In fact, it doesn’t actually set at all! We believe we see the world as it is, yet we see only a fraction of light, hear only a sliver of sound, yes we call it complete.
But if every human voice disappeared tomorrow – every argument, every doctrine, every institution – what would still be true?
Those are the things worth trusting. Those are the things durable enough to stand without you.
Everything else should be held gently…not strangled in a threatening death-grip.
And here’s where this idea becomes beautifully and intimately human:
Sometimes we don’t cling because our beliefs are strong. We cling because we’ve stitched them into our very identity. We’ve boasted so proudly, waved our flags so vehemently, defended so courageously…that if I admitted I was wrong, it’d feel like “I” was wrong. And that’s a heavy price to pay for personal growth.
If “I” and “my beliefs” are too tightly woven together…and the beliefs crack…then what happens to me? So the defense of my beliefs stops being about truth, and becomes about survival.
Survival grips, but real strength can open its hands.
Clinging is weakness.
Confidence and security can afford curiosity.
When our beliefs falter…when they dissolve and collapse like a castle made of sand, it’s not a tragedy. It’s a revelation. It’s freeing.
When we question, when we’re open, when we’re brave…we see that what dissolves was never stone, and what remains was never fragile.
There is a quiet beauty in being wrong…in watching something you once defended soften and fall apart…and in realizing you are still standing after it does.
Growth is not humiliation. It is refinement. It is setting your beliefs down gently, stepping away, and discovering which of them stand tall without you holding them up.
Then, when something stands…even in your absence…you no longer need to defend it. It’s whole and integrated on its own. There’s real peace in that. There’s security.
Believe what you believe. Stand on it, if you choose. But hold it loosely enough that the tide can test it. Loosely enough that evolution does not feel like death. Loosely enough that you can love truth more than you love being right.
Because you are not your current set of beliefs.
You are the one capable of expanding them.
Harvesting Insights 