Extreme viewpoints are seldom useful
Balance is the key in life
Buddhism preaches balance. Lord Buddha said that Balance is key.
Do you believe it?
Even Bhagavad Geeta espouses a balance of mind. Being not too much happy in happiness and not too sad during hard times in life. Thus it treats balanced behavior as the key to a peaceful life.
I am sure there are other texts that say good things about balance but they might not have said anything about the peak or the extreme.
Holding extreme opinions about anything often eclipses our ability to listen to other people. We simply become numb to their opinions and begin to treat ours as the sole winner.
Living in the extreme is never the answer in life.
Extreme opinions about anything can land us in trouble in life.
It masks us from facing the fact that our thoughts might be wrong.
A person who always gets angry or flustered when presented with opposing views is the weakest. He treats it as an attack on himself.
Whereas a person who is ready to face any attack on his opinion might learn a thing or two from it and thus improve it further.
Extreme opinions if held for long create bitterness in our hearts. We forget how to differentiate between an opinion and a person holding it. If held for too long, this results in violence also.
You can see this online too. On various social media sites, people are spewing vitriol against each other without ever giving a chance to understand the other person.
Holding to an opinion is not wrong but if you keep holding on to it when counter-evidence is presented before you, then you start to look like a fanatic or an extremist.
You become a hard liner and refuse to see the truth.
Whereas our sole motivation should be to always keep on refining our thinking process, thoughts, values, etc.
Never should we become attached to our past opinions.
We should seek out counter opinions and be mature enough to give other people a chance to present their divergent views.
If only a person listens peacefully to another person in this world with a counterview in order to understand it and not just to reply, we would be in a much better place.
Seek opposition to your views consistently.
Otherwise, the internet can serve as a place to just prove your confirmation bias.
Think critically, and be prepared to abandon your thinking if you face concrete evidence against it.
You are not your opinions. Do not get too attached to them.
And in the end, always remember the saying of Socrates:
“I only know one thing that I know nothing”
Well, indeed, isn’t it?
I write on my blog daily. This is day 74 of my daily writing challenge for 2022. I write about what interests me. There is no word limit. I am doing this simply to learn and become a better writer. Tag along with me and share your own journey.
