If you are like me, I bet you have some pretty long-held beliefs. You view life in a certain way, and these beliefs dovetail with your overall understanding of things. Questioning a certain belief might throw your entire worldview into doubt, so many of us carry on in our little bubbles, regardless of whether our beliefs still stack up. I wouldn’t say that I am utterly inflexible, but sometimes I notice myself behaving in this way. When life is comfortable, why challenge it?
Questioning and refining your beliefs is one thing, and life will certainly provide a few shocks along the way to help with this, but it is even more important to be able to question and analyse your decisions. Making decisions from the “gut” is all well and good, but if there is not a solid and rational reason for these decisions, more often than not, they will come back to haunt you.
In our ridiculously busy lives, we need to take the time to consider the impact of what we are doing and why exactly we are doing it.
If I may, I will use the #Brexit as an example. I have always viewed European integration as a positive development for the UK, and my initial reaction to the referendum question was a quick “remain.” Then I thought about it for a while and put the short-term turmoil to one side to consider the future for my children of an independent Britain. In an issue, where no crystal ball can predict the outcomes, it comes down to a question of control. Do we hand further control over to Brussels or do we seek to take charge of our own destiny? I instinctively knew the answer, and felt my allegiances waver. My opinion was seemingly not as set in stone as I thought, and this in turn compelled me to investigate every aspect of the matter in far more depth. I won’t go into detail here, and after much consideration I am still on the “remain” side, but I am there with a much firmer conviction of “why” I am there.
When you think about questions, you learn more about yourself.
The whole of the UK are going to be weighing up these arguments over the next few weeks. We have never really doubted our status as a leading world power, but how much of that is linked with EU membership? We can stand alone on the world stage, but are we simply setting ourselves adrift on a lifeboat with meagre rations for the foreseeable future? We can stop the tide of migrants, but with the same aging population as Germany, why aren’t we actively welcoming them as they are?
These are all valid questions, and whatever the question may be about, they are healthy if we set about getting some answers for ourselves. Questions that remain unanswered turn into doubts, and doubts cause us to stop asking the questions in the first place.
I hope that the UK will have properly considered their decisions so that on the 23rd June we can move forward as a country towards a prosperous future, whatever that may look like.
Written by Alex Turner, Edited by Paul Drury