“A belief is not dangerous . . .

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . until it turns absolute.”

So much of what people call “conviction” is actually a willful disregard for facts that might change their minds. It’s dangerous because conviction feels like a good attribute, while its opposite – being wishy-washy – makes you feel and sound like an idiot.

There’s this thing in psychology called the end of history illusion, which is the idea that people are aware of how much their personality has changed in the past, but they assume it will be stable in the future. I laugh at who I was at age 20, but I assume that by age 60 I’ll roughly be the same person I am today. Part of the reason it occurs is because it’s too painful to accept that the beliefs I hold today might be wrong, temporary, or subjective.

Morgan Housel, from this post