How do we know if our understanding of life, our "map of reality", is accurate? One way is to examine it every once in a while through deep self-reflection. If you're like me, though, you're not so inclined to deep self-reflection. So how can we can have examination done? By opening ourselves up to friendly challenges from other people who have a different view of life. Sharing our views with like-minded people does not really work as a "challenge" though, because they will usually reinforce the ideas we have in common. 

The best type of interaction for this purpose is one that really makes you think about why you believe what you believe. People can actually help us by asking us questions about our beliefs that might never have occurred to us. Many of our own views we take for granted, while to someone else they might seem questionable. Great! If our map of reality can provide answers to their questions and concerns, we can feel confident that it is accurate in those areas. However, if we find our map does not hold up too well under close examination, then maybe our map is in need of revision. If we cannot see where our map is off, it will be very hard to change it.

In order for this to work we need to be honest with ourselves. When we are challenged it will benefit us only if we are honest with why we think the way we do. It takes courage to admit to ourselves that we may have been misguided or misinformed about something. It takes even more courage to decide that we would be better off changing in a particular area of our lives. Sometimes we find ourselves resisting accepting something we know is true. It does not help much if we open ourselves up to challenge, realize we need to update our map, and then do not follow through with that change. Changing our view of life is hard, but it well worth the effort in order to have a more accurate map of reality.