What Does It Mean to Be Blinded by Your Beliefs?
In one way, it means that you haven’t thought something completely
through.
For example, you're playing high school football and everyone tells
you how good you are and pretty soon you start to have dreams of
playing professional football. This could be a problem for anyone
who has a difficult time putting all of the pieces of the puzzle
together and then making a rational decision.
It wouldn't be a bad idea for this individual to find out exactly
what it takes to play professional football and while they're doing
that, they will also need to honestly evaluate their talents.
They will need to gather as much information as they possibly can
about professional football, in order to make the best educated
guess currently available. Now this is where it gets tricky, if you
don't gather enough information or do enough research, you could be
in for the shock of your life.
You could continue to practice and even try out for a professional
football team, only to end up disappointed, because you didn't have
all of the important information. Hence the word “important.”
Maybe you were too small, too tall, weren't strong enough or maybe
even it’s time for the ultimate reality check, to find out how good
you really weren't. Anyone who has the ability to rationalize and
sort through relevant information, while drawing a rational
conclusion about their future or present events, probably won't be
blinded by someone else's beliefs.
People who end up being blinded by beliefs are people who
buy into other people's stories. You're pretty, when you're average
looking or you're smart, when in reality you're only the smartest person
in your family or maybe your classroom, but on a university level,
you're average or in some cases might even be below average.
This is an excellent example of blinding beliefs.
It's time to open our eyes and start accepting things for what they
really are. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the view from
my side of the river (reality) is a lot nicer than the view from the
other side (belief), but you're not going to ever see it, if you
continue to believe in things that cannot absolutely be rationally
validated.