I change my mind all the time, and l don't even need to have a conversation to make it happen. It's really strange to be 45 and still learning new things about myself, practically daily.

Let's just say I'm really grateful for therapy and journaling.

Not usually in a single conversation but even one exposure to a different idea can plant a seed. I changed my mind about universal healthcare. I try not to hold onto my opinions so tightly, I like to argue and debate and have people challenge my assumptions.

I grew up in Western Kansas. I voted for Reagan in the first election I was old enough to vote in and I've voted in every presidential election since. I went from Reagan to Bush senior to Clinton and while I've certainly moved to the left I think it speaks more to how the parties have headed to the extremes. Basically the more of the world I was exposed to the more I began to relate to my fellow man. For me, the Right became more about exclusion and the left at least panders to the idea of inclusion.

As I kid I think I did a few times. As I got older I started realizing just how fluid the way people think can be. There is no way to know everything and the more I learned, the more I realized I had a hell of a lot more to learn. Now I try to be open enough to recognize when I have an opportunity to learn a little more about the topics that interest me and to not reject or condemn the things that I'm not very well versed in yet.

Yeah, it was really drilled into me as a kid that women were to be put up on a pedestal. It wasn't until my third relationship that I started realizing how they're just as fallible as us guys.

Happens all the time. only a fool knows everything.

I used to have a pretty biased, if not superior opinion regarding how and why some cultures developed advanced technology and forms of agriculture, while others seemed to remain frozen in time. And then I read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel ... totally blew my mind, and created a paradigm shift.

Absolutely. That’s how science works. I can also listen to a reasoned argument and change my mind on a subject. My ego is fine.

Because my ex wife only gets half of my military pension while I am alive... I Believe she is not the woman that is going to kill me... I firmly believe that and I will never change my believe.

It wasn't so much an argument or evidence presented by someone else that changed my political beliefs, but rather my own experience and observations.

Believe it or not, I used to be a conservative Ayn Rand-y type. I grew up in a privileged upper middle-class household and went off to a college that catered to folks like that. When I got back home with a masters degree I couldn't use, I drove taxi for two years in Durham, NC. I saw every inch of that town while I was driving, the rich parts and the poor parts sometimes right next to each other. Most of my passengers were poor whites and poor blacks who couldn't afford their own set of wheels. Some were on welfare, but most of them had jobs--often multiple jobs--but were barely scraping by. I saw how little the capitalist system I used to glorify was benefiting them, and that began my journey leftwards.

The Death Penalty, In my 20s I was 100% for the death penalty. I debated my stepfather one day, and through his argument, I started to change my mind. It didn't happen instantly it took discussing it on and off for close to a year before I even got to midground with him. I am now 90% against the death penalty. I can't get myself all the way there yet, and I'm in my 50s, but I figure I have at least 15 to 20 solid years to think it over.

I used to think physical attributes were the key to a relationship. Wrong. Compatability, intelligence and social and political values are more important.

No, I was born with every thought, emotion, idea, conclusion already intact.

Oh, yes. I grew up in the bible belt of the deep south. While living in Berlin, Germany-- cut off from contact with Americans -- German friends were frequently asking me questions about the racial problems in the American south. Having grown up in the southern culture, I took many things for granted that I should not have. In answering questions, I simply ran out of rationalizations and excuses and admitted to myself that the racist culture of the south was inherently immoral.

GMOs. I was following the anti stance until I started reading more about it and looking at the analyses of scientists I trust.

Happened to me today, here. A post was made saying that when we argue with someone fixed about something, our audience is not that person, but rather those around that person, so that they can understand everyone does not agree on that issue. That was a surprise to me. An unexpected surprise and I immediately changed my mind about whether, how, and if, I will argue with a zealot.