{"id":22506,"date":"2017-08-08T21:11:48","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T02:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22506"},"modified":"2017-08-08T21:15:57","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T02:15:57","slug":"if-you-made-an-error-yesterday-its-foolish-consistency-to-stick-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22506","title":{"rendered":"If you made an error yesterday, it\u2019s \u2018foolish consistency\u2019 to stick with it"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most people are afraid to turn around when they’ve made a choice they’ve determined to be wrong. If they turn the wrong way down a road — confidently declaring it to be the way to go — they persist with the error long after it’s obvious.<\/p>\n

We humans hate admitting we’re wrong.<\/p>\n

We trap ourselves with our desire to be consistent, even if we don’t consciously know what we’re doing. Most of us are terrified of being seen as contradictory, so we\u2019re afraid to reverse course and say, \u201cI know I said X, but I was wrong and I\u2019ve realized Y is the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most people keep themselves locked into X long after they\u2019ve realized Y is true, because they\u2019re too weak to admit to having been wrong and forthrightly turn around. This is what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant in a widely misunderstood passage in his 1841 essay on \u201cSelf-Reliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines,\u201d Emerson wrote. \u201cWith consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emerson isn\u2019t saying to be hypocritical. He isn\u2019t saying to be intentionally confusing to people. He\u2019s merely suggesting that you should speak truth as you understand it today \u2014 and also speak truth as you understand it tomorrow. If something about your understanding has changed, he says it is a \u201cfoolish consistency\u201d to stick with what you had said before.<\/p>\n

My life has been full of major changes. When I was young, I was a mainstream conservative. As I discovered the contradictions of my positions, I was forced into the libertarian camp. As I understood more and more about the principles in which I believed, I had to walk away from the entire political system — because my ethics insisted that nothing but a voluntary system could be moral<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ve radically changed my theological views. I’ve radically changed my ideas of what a good life is. I’ve radically changed my understanding of how to educate children and how to raise them in healthy ways. I’ve radically changed in my understanding of myself and what I’m trying to do with my life. Perhaps the most difficult reversal was walking away from a marriage that I had thought for years was close to perfect.<\/p>\n

Every one of these changes required me to change my mind — then admit to others that I had been wrong — and then walk in a different direction. That isn’t easy.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been taught to be consistent. We\u2019ve been taught to keep our word. We\u2019ve been taught that it\u2019s \u201cwaffling\u201d to change our minds. What we haven\u2019t been taught is how to say, \u201cI was wrong,\u201d and, \u201cI\u2019m going to correct this before the mistake goes any further.\u201d<\/p>\n

We all need to find what\u2019s right for ourselves to do and be today and tomorrow and every day. If my conclusions about some things stay consistent \u2014\u00a0who I love, what my values are, where my ethical boundaries are \u2014 that\u2019s great. But when I find I\u2019ve been wrong about certain things, I have to turn around and admit my error.<\/p>\n

A courageous and wise person admits he was wrong yesterday — or that something once true is no longer true — and changes course today.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re sticking with something you said yesterday \u2014\u00a0merely because you said it yesterday \u2014 but you have now discovered the truth lies elsewhere, you owe it to yourself to say so. What\u2019s more, your commitment ought to be to truth, not consistency with your own past errors.<\/p>\n

If you’re driving down the wrong road of life — and it’s obvious you made a wrong turn — it’s time to turn around before things get worse. There’s nothing worse than the feeling inside of living a lie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people are afraid to turn around when they’ve made a choice they’ve determined to be wrong. If they turn the wrong way down a road — confidently declaring it to be the way to go — they persist with the error long after it’s obvious. We humans hate admitting we’re wrong. We trap ourselves Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-5R0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22506"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22514,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22506\/revisions\/22514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}