EDITORIAL: Changing an opinion involves heavy lifting

When’s the last time you changed your mind?

You know: challenged some way in which you think and came out on the other side with a different perspective?

Yes, the time you actually got to know someone better and decided she really wasn’t so bad counts. And when at last you tried fried onions after turning your nose up at them for years, only to discover their delectability? That’s good, too.

What about your team? Your political party? Your principles? 

In ways great and small, we grow most when we challenge what we assume, what we take for granted, what we “know” to be correct. 

It happens when we step outside the echo chambers of society’s construction and actually think for ourselves, engaging in our own little quests to gather information not to support what we already think but to honestly consider why others might see things differently, how other paths might lead to more fulfilling destinations.

Well, that’s our opinion about opinions, anyway. 

Here are several others.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. — William Blake

Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to truth. — Thomas Jefferson

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance. — Plato

The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions. — Leonardo da Vinci

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The foolish and the dead never change their opinions. — James Russell Lowell

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. — Thomas Jefferson

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant. — Harlan Ellison

The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion. — Arnold H. Glasow

Too often we…enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. — John F. Kennedy

And if you take nothing else away from this editorial, please contemplate Samuel Clements' wisdom and firm grasp on truth. There's a fair chance you'll agree with him.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. — Mark Twain