R2 Thoughts for You How Important Are Our Beliefs?
If this environment is unsafe to drive in, then I could change my environment by changing my belief from “it is safe,” to unsafe, and STOP driving!
How important are our beliefs? Now, I’m not necessarily referring to religious beliefs. For this writing for learning exercise I want to consider beliefs, in general, and their connection to our life.
Last July, I did a post on beliefs and whether or not we should change what we believe. Click here in order to visit that post. In this post, I will not focus on whether or not we should change our beliefs, but instead, how to determine our beliefs and how important they are to the changes in our lives.
Ok, so first, let’s explore how we can determine what beliefs we have. Should we take out a notepad and pencil and start writing down what we think we believe? Should we ask someone close to us what s/he thinks we believe? Should we study the written and spoken word that we value? Should we consider what our loved ones believe? These are questions that all have the same answer. No!
Your beliefs are “right in front of you.”
Well, what should we do? Simply stated, look around! Look at your life. Everything that you believe, is right under your nose. That, of course, is an idiom implying that our beliefs are right in front of us. That of course is another idiom … :-)
Now, sometimes people tell me they believe something and then, when I look at their lives, I can’t see them reflecting what they say they believe. This, for example, is what I see happening with many who claim to believe in the bible and what it teaches, yet the lives they live often violate many of those “teachings.”
So, if you want to know what you believe in, then take a look at your life. Do you believe you are a person who deserves love? Do you believe you deserve plenty of everything you need? If you answered yes to those two questions, then you most likely are with people you love and have enough of everything you need. Notice, I wrote need – not want.
But, if you believe you don’t deserve love and plenty of what you need, then you most likely are having troubles with both. The point is that if you want to change your life, then you should not start by trying to change your environment. Instead, in order to change your life, start with your beliefs. As you change your beliefs, changes in your environment follow naturally since you are an integral part of your environment.
Are you what you think? Are your beliefs part of your thinking? These are two questions that most likely require more than a simple yes or no. I think most of us would say that both questions have answers that lean closer to yes than no. The second question seems obvious to me. My beliefs are always part of my thinking. So, if I want to change the way my life appears, I shouldn’t start by changing my environment, but instead, start with the beliefs in my head.
Exploring science. Are they changing what they know or what they believe?
Let me give you a personal example. When I was a young boy, living with my parents, I disliked the uncleanliness and clutter in my home. I disliked it, but the way that I first tried to change it was by getting everyone else to change. That wasn’t a successful approach, in that the only result was making my entire family upset. After awhile, I realized that I believed it was the responsibility of everyone, but me, to fixed the problem of clutter and uncleanliness. Though I didn’t change my belief immediately, when I did, my environment became much cleaner and orderly.
You see, before I could affect the change that I wanted, I had to change what I believed was the cause. I am always part of my environment and changing my belief has to occur before I can affect change in my life.
So, how important are our beliefs? As important as our lives!
Do you believe it? :-)
R2 Thoughts for You 