In a short but sweet article “But We’ve always done it this way“,
Denise O’Berry talks about a woman who followed an interesting practice
while fixing holiday ham because her grandmother taught her that way.
The practice was to lop off both ends of the ham before placing it in
the pan. Upon checking with the grandmother, what they found was that
her grandmother followed that practice to ensure that the ham could fit
into the pan she had. Although this woman had a bigger pan now, the
practice continued.

While we can chuckle at the story, I am sure there are many such
practices of convenience that we follow in our lives just because
that’s how we learnt them. Actually, it’s hard to identify these
practices as these are “truths” and “facts” in our mind. We don’t
question facts just like we don’t question gravity. They are just there.

One way to break free from this prison is to just stop the temptation
to defend something when someone else has a different opinion about
that same thing. It is an immediate opportunity to see “whose thoughts
are we following” blindly. Many times we learn what we do from someone.
At the time of learning the lessons may have been valid but the lessons
must change to reflect the times.

So, the question therefore is “Why
not proactively look at some of those lessons and upgrade them to the
current times rather than wait until we are forced to do so?“