False beliefs are held by individuals, they are in many ways a social phenomenon because those beliefs were tethered to an environment they belonged to and that was deeply important to their lives and their sense of self. You’re in a position of defending your choices no matter what information is presented, because if you don’t, it means that you lose your membership in this group that’s become so important to you.
People convince themselves or remain convinced of what they want to believe—they seek out agreeable information and learn it more easily; and they avoid, ignore, devalue, forget, or argue against information that contradicts their beliefs.
We are not who we think we are. All of us are individuals carrying out experiments on ourselves — with the job, with love, with friends, with cities, and with risks. We make choices we are now at the jobs with purpose, people who believe in us and risks that turned out to be opportunities. We didn’t make some decisions of our lives. Our guardians made them for us when we couldn’t, and the consequences reflect in our lives now. Those decisions cannot be rolled back. But there’s no rule that says our struggle in future must adhere.
Our work sure defines how we introduce ourselves, but our introductions do not define who we are. “Do not let the roles you play in life make you forget who you are.”
People also learn selectively—they’re better at learning facts that confirm their worldview than facts that challenge it. The human mind is indeed a strange thing and it believes in something because it wants to believe in it. It is as if we ask ourselves ‘Can I believe this?’, but for unpalatable conclusions we ask, ‘Must I believe this?’” People come to some information seeking permission to believe, and to other information looking for escape routes.
The argument about how the media is fragmenting, how belief beats out fact, and how objective reality itself gets questioned, people cocoon themselves thoroughly in social-media spheres that only told them what they wanted to hear. Today media is relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
*****As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at any time can break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.
He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.
Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?
"Failure is a part of learning. We should never give up the struggle in life. You Fail not because you are destined to fail, but because there are lessons which you need to learn as you move on with your life." *****
Life is not something that you have to settle at. The randomness of life doesn’t have to be confined in a routine. Instead, think of life as a series of experiments — right from the first one to the end of life. There are facts, and there are beliefs, and there are things you want so badly to believe that they become as facts to you. The real enemy of truth is not ignorance, doubt, or even disbelief. It is false knowledge.