I remember reading about “strong opinions, weakly held” which I followed for many years. It was developed by Paul Saffo at Standford, and the idea was that you should have concrete beliefs that you enact until new information comes along to change your underlying view.

This often makes you feel good about yourself, it makes you feel decisive, but on reflection, I think ultimately the first part is far easier than the second. Strong opinions are a dime a dozen, “weakly held” is incredibly difficult, even when you’re a Standford professor. Our underlying monkey brains drive us to maintain our views aggressively in the face of new evidence.

I think this view also neglects the personal harms that we cause when we use the mantra in our everyday life. It’s much easier to not get angry about something when you go into a problem with the weakly held belief that the other made a mistake, than it is to chastise, scorn and attempt to teach only to find you were the one in error.

Mental Liquidity, as discussed in Morgan Housel’s short post reminds us that even the best of us struggle to change our minds. If it takes Einstein 5 years, what hope do we have?

On the otherhand, much of our life benefits from definitive decision making when we’re ultimately right - it’s tough to balance to keep.