A Henry David Thoreau quote about tradition from the August 8 edition of Leo Tolstoy’s A Calendar Of Wisdom strikes me:
For the majority of mankind, religion is a habit, or, more precisely, tradition is their religion. Though it seems strange, I think that the first step to moral perfection is your liberation from the religion in which you were raised. Not a single person has come to perfection except by following this way.
Reading it quickly, this passage could be taken as an anti-religion statement. But the phrase “tradition is their religion” is telling. Tradition is vitally important. It guides and comforts. It provides direction when in doubt. Tradition can also harm when blindly followed.
To combat this, you must be open to new ideas. New thinking. As Thoreau writes in Walden, “It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.”
If I’ve learned anything from my increased reading of the last five years, it’s that to grow you must sometimes change your mind. That doesn’t mean you wholly alter your reality. It does mean that questioning traditions is not only acceptable but required.
Listening to something you disagree with is one of the most difficult things to do in life. You don’t want to admit you’re wrong, so you shut out counter-arguments. Questioning your beliefs is about learning to think. It means being less arrogant and more doubtful of your ideas and opinions. After all, much of what you believe is either wrong or wildly incomplete, so how right can you be about anything?
That last question is directed at me, the writer, as much as to the reader.
