Where Do Your Beliefs End… and You Begin?
Who Told You That?
Wisdom From the Front Porch
I’ve been wondering something.
When I was a kid, I believed coffee would stunt your growth. I also believed that if I swallowed a watermelon seed, one day I’d wake up with a watermelon growing in my stomach. Neither happened. Although, judging by some of my college eating habits, there were definitely a few days I looked like I was trying.
😂
The funny thing is, kids are supposed to believe what they’re’re told. That’s how they survive. When your mom says, “Don’t touch the stove,” you don’t ask to review the scientific literature. You don’t request a second opinion. You simply decide you’d like to keep your fingerprints. Borrowing beliefs is part of growing up. It keeps us safe until we’re old enough to figure things out for ourselves.
The problem is… somewhere along the way, many of us stop borrowing beliefs and start living inside them.
We all carry little phrases that came from somewhere else. My dad always said… My coach believed… My pastor taught… My doctor explained… I heard on a podcast… I read it online… None of those sources are automatically right or wrong. They simply become part of the furniture in our minds. After enough years, we stop asking where the idea came from and begin defending it as though we discovered it ourselves.
That makes me wonder…
At what point did those beliefs actually become yours?
One of the things I miss about front porches is that people used to disagree without assuming the other person was the enemy. They argued about baseball, fishing, politics, whose truck was built better, and whether Grandma’s pie recipe had too much cinnamon. Someone laughed. Somebody’s wife brought out iced tea. Before long the conversation drifted to something else, and the next Saturday everybody showed up again.
Today we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that changing your mind is a sign of weakness.
That’s odd.
Changing your mind is exactly how learning works.
Imagine if science never changed its mind.
Imagine if medicine refused to question itself.
Imagine if you still believed everything you believed when you were twelve.
Actually…
don’t imagine that.
😂
❌ Borrowed Beliefs
❌ “Because that’s what everyone says.”
❌ “Because my parents believed it.”
❌ “Because my favorite expert said so.”
❌ “Because my political team agrees.”
❌ “Because that’s how we’ve always done it.”
✅ Examined Beliefs
✅ Curiosity.
✅ Observation.
✅ Evidence.
✅ Humility.
✅ A willingness to say,
“I’ve never thought about it that way before.”
This isn’t just a philosophy problem. It’s a health problem too.
Listen to almost any health conversation and you’ll hear the same pattern. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Fat makes you fat. Avoid the sun. Count your calories. Exercise fixes everything. Some of those ideas contain truth. Some don’t. Most are more complicated than the bumper sticker version we’ve inherited.
The real question isn’t whether a particular belief is correct.
The real question is whether you’ve ever taken the time to examine it.
Not because someone on social media challenged it.
Because your own curiosity did.
Almost every meaningful discovery in history started with someone asking a question that made everyone else uncomfortable:
“What if we’ve been wrong?”
Biology Doesn’t Negotiate
Your cells don’t care about your opinions.
Your mitochondria don’t vote.
Melatonin doesn’t belong to a political party.
The sun rises for everyone.
Gravity works on everyone.
Circadian biology doesn’t ask where you get your news or whose podcast you listen to.
Nature has no ideology.
Only consequences.
That’s one of the reasons I trust biology.
It has no interest in winning an argument.
It only responds to the signals we give it.
Things Nature Never Needed
❌ Political parties.
❌ Social media influencers.
❌ Comment sections.
❌ Twenty-four-hour opinion channels.
Yet somehow the seasons still change.
The birds still migrate.
The sun still rises.
Nature has been quietly telling the truth long before humans started arguing about it.
Cody’s Take
The older I get, the less interested I become in being right and the more interested I become in discovering what’s true. Those aren’t always the same thing.
I’ve changed my mind about nutrition. About exercise. About stress. About success. About people. Not because someone beat me in an argument, but because I became curious enough to ask better questions.
I’ve learned that certainty feels comfortable.
Curiosity makes us grow.
This Week’s Challenge
Pick one belief you’ve held for years.
Not because someone disagrees with it.
Because you’re genuinely curious.
Ask yourself:
Who told me that?
How do I know it’s true?
If I had never heard it before…would I still believe it today?
You don’t have to change your mind.
Just be willing to examine it.
Sometimes curiosity is the beginning of wisdom.
The Line
Your beliefs should be a house you build…
Not a prison someone else built for you.
Before You Close This Tab…
🤔 Did I question something today?
📚 Did I learn…or simply defend what I already believed?
☀️ Did I let biology teach me something?
❤️ Did I stay curious instead of becoming certain?
😂 Did I laugh at the possibility that I might still be wrong about a few things?
Because maybe the most dangerous sentence in the world isn’t…
“I don’t know.”
Maybe it’s…
“I’ve already decided.”
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