As you get older and more experienced, do you find you are more likely or less likely to re-examine your opinions?

Interesting. The older I get, the more likely I am to be less attached to what I once believed.

Not quite what I was getting at, but okay...

 

  Well, if I were to focus on and use the word you used, “re-examine”, at various times throughout my life, there are opinions of mine that I have re-examined, sure. Has it happened more often or less often as I have gotten older and gained more experience in life? Meh, that’s hard to say. Life events have their imprint on me, I really have to say my re-examinations may have the same frequency now as they ever had, it’s probably the level of or the depth of that re-examination that’s hard to define. I’m an extremely analytical person overall, I would like to say I’m also introspective, but I think I ignore or dismiss a lot of turning the mirror to myself.

  When I went overseas for the very first time, I was 19 years old, when I returned to the States, I was 20 years old. I remember a letter I wrote to my mother as the ship was steaming* across the Pacific eastbound, I stated something to the effect of, “socially and politically, I don’t care about some things that I used to care about, and I do care about some things that I didn’t used to care about”.

  When I got married, when I became a father, when I hit milestones in my military tours of duty, when I experienced culture shock of leaving Hawaii after five years and going to rural North Carolina for the next three years, when I left military service and became a civilian again, when I was in a roll- over car accident, when I raised teenagers, when COVID19 hit, when I was placed on mandatory retirement, , etc., etc., etc., I have had many instances of changed opinions throughout the years.

  Your question is not only interesting, thought-provoking and intriguing, it’s philosophical too.

  

*It’s just an expression.
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I have found that as I age, I am willing to accept that there are many more gray areas than I previously thought and that I do not have to have to weigh in on one side or the other of a political or social issue. I understand the difficulty of the choices and decisions that leaders have to make. On the other hand, I know many people my age or older who simply refuse to accept that everything isn't either right or wrong. For instance, my grandfather was a racist; it was how he was raised and it was pretty much the norm in those times. When he made blanket statements that we younger ones didn't like, we would ask him 'what about your friend Sam' and he would say 'well, Sam is different, he's OK'. Then we would ask him about George, a man he worked with or Grandma's friend Hazel. Again, he would say 'they're different'. No matter how many black people he personally knew and liked, he would never take a look at his views and wonder if he should alter them.

It sounds to me like you're not too set in your views if you're willing to research and expand your understanding. I'm that way too.