I like this sentence I read in Parker Palmer's book 'On the Brink of Everything': "One advantage of age is the chance it gives us to learn and relearn until we truly know". These words tell a profound verity: when we hear, understand and accept a certain principle or belief, we are convinced that we have learned it. We presume we "know". But that happens rarely. You might agree with an ethical rule but then, when a situation challenges you, you may tend to momentarily forget what you had previously accepted and allow yourself to make a little exception. And another.... But, in the course of your life, you are given the chance to experience, over and over, how a little exception here and another little exception there create a pattern of behavior that you did not want in the first place. Only then do you truly learn (= make it part of yourself). At this point.... you "know"!
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