We don’t know as much as we think we do. We are often mistaken and wrong and we need to rethink some of our beliefs a lot.
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about uncertainty and correcting beliefs. But I also have been reading and thinking about commitment too. Sometimes we want to commit to beliefs, and hold to those beliefs, even when other people say we’re wrong.
I think it’s a miserable existence to only believe in what is supported with a proper meta-analysis and scientific consensus. Science can be great. But science is not the most important way we gain belief.
I believe there is truth, truth that is not relative. But I truth cannot always be discovered through the scientific process. There are many ways to discover truth, and to hold on to truth.
We learn through living. We learn through relationships and connection with others. We learn with experience. We learn sometimes through faith and action and seeing what works out and what doesn’t.
I want to be open to new beliefs, to updating what I think is wrong. But I am also committed to certain beliefs–beliefs on how to be a good person, how to raise my family, and how to live my life. Those aren’t the sort of beliefs I want to rethink over and over again. I just want to hold on to them and keep trying to live up to them.
I pray every morning and every night, and my prayer is often that God can guide me and that I can hear Him in my life. There are moments when I feel something that cannot be adequately explained except to say it is divine, that it comes from a power outside of myself. That is what I am committed to. That is what I believe.
So I will be a skeptic, sometimes, and I will be a scientist, sometimes, and then most of all, I will be a mother and a wife and a daughter and a friend, and my commitment to the most important beliefs will guide me to become an even better version of myself.
Heather Hoyt 