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28 October 2026

There is a peculiar comfort in believing that we are right. It saves us the trouble of examining our assumptions, listening patiently to disagreement, or admitting that an experience has changed our understanding. Certainty can make a complicated world feel manageable.

Yet some of the most persistent mistakes begin with perfectly sincere conviction.

Think of a person who has worked for decades with the same methods. Experience has served him well, and he has earned the right to trust his judgement. Then circumstances change. What once worked begins to fail, but familiarity persuades him that the problem lies elsewhere.

The difficulty is not a lack of intelligence. It is the reluctance to question what intelligence has helped us build.

There is a difference between having convictions and becoming imprisoned by them. Convictions give us direction; the willingness to reconsider keeps us from travelling too far in the wrong direction.

Perhaps maturity is not the ability to answer every question with confidence. Perhaps it is knowing which answers deserve to be questioned again.

A mind that can revise its conclusions has not surrendered its strength. It has discovered a more demanding form of it.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah, Guwahati, Assam, India, Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah, YouTube: conversewithasmile, email rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com