I would be happy to provide a couple of examples. Bear in mind, of course, that these are my examples—you will have to come up with your own to complete the assignment! However, I hope that the stories I share help you answer the question on your own. As you read my examples, keep an eye out for several key features:
- A clear comparison of the differences in my beliefs before and after the experience
- A succinct description of the event that changed my mind and how it affected me in the moment
- The rough time frame over which I held the old and new beliefs and indications of when the change occurred
- A respect for others who may hold different paradigms of belief
My first major example is religious. To reiterate, I am sharing my own beliefs, not what I think others should believe. If you decide to share a similar example, I recommend keeping your description matter-of-fact to avoid the appearance of proselytization.
As a young teen, I held a deep belief in the collective unconscious. While I did not believe in any particular deity, I held the firm conviction that supernatural beliefs had to come from somewhere and that superstition and worship were an essential part of being a complete person.
Then, in high school, I took a class on comparative religion. My teacher shared sociological theories that illustrated the practical ends religion could provide for groups, and my teacher demonstrated how evolutionary pressures could create a predisposition toward belief. I also learned about the wide scope of human religions and the many beliefs that I came to view as mutually incompatible.
Ultimately, this knowledge led me to stop identifying as a deist, and I began to call myself an atheist. I chose to focus on science, rather than spiritualism, as my primary means of understanding the world.
My second example is much less contentious but no less important. If you decide to go with something like my next case, make sure to emphasize its widespread impact on your life. Mundane examples do not have the same weight as religion, politics, and morality, so it is up to you to prove that they are substantial.
One night, my wife was worried about a nocturnal animal scurrying about on our street. I told her not to worry because skunks were harmless. She looked at me like I had grown a second head and said that it was an opossum. I lectured her on how it was obviously a skunk because it had black fur and a stripe. She angrily replied that she had lived in a neighborhood with opossums for years, and she knew exactly what they looked like.
I pointed it out. "You're telling me that that's a opossum?"
She pointed to the other end of the street. "I'm telling you that that is a opossum!" she said.
We were both right: we had a skunk and a opossum on our street, and we were talking about different things entirely.
After that, I looked back at dozens of fights I had been in with dozens of people in the past. How many of them were because we had simply talked past each other? How many occured because we were holding two different conversations without realizing it? Since that day, I have been much slower to assume that my conversational partners are clueless and much more thorough about defining terms and finding common ground before wading headfirst into a debate.
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