The Courage to Question What We Have Been Taught to Believe
INSIGHT · FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF
Why progress begins when we challenge our assumptions about success, competition, identity, and the world we have inherited.
The Questions We Rarely Dare to Ask
At some point in life, we should all ask ourselves a rather uncomfortable question:
How much of what we believe is genuinely ours, and how much have we simply inherited from a world that taught us what to think before teaching us how to question?
We are born into societies that already have their answers.
We are told what success looks like, what failure means, whom to admire, whom to fear, what constitutes a good life, and what we should aspire to become.
We learn to compete before we learn to cooperate. We learn to measure ourselves against others before we understand ourselves. We learn to defend our beliefs long before we learn to examine them.
And somewhere along the way, we begin confusing what is familiar with what is true.
I have spent more than three decades building businesses, developing projects, investing, negotiating across borders, and working with people from remarkably different cultures, religions, political systems, and economic realities.
I have experienced success, witnessed failure, built relationships that crossed continents, and watched supposedly impossible ideas become reality.
But perhaps the most valuable lesson I have learned is that the greatest limitations we face are often not imposed by the world itself, but by the assumptions through which we interpret it.
And the older I get, the more interested I become in questioning those assumptions.
1. Why Do We Measure Life by What We Have Accumulated Rather Than What We Have Experienced?
Modern society has developed a remarkably sophisticated system for measuring success.
We count wealth, titles, properties, followers, transactions, and achievements.
We celebrate those who accumulate the most, build the largest, and rise the highest.
I understand this world intimately. I have spent much of my professional life creating enterprises, pursuing opportunities, managing substantial projects, and seeking financial success.
And I remain an entrepreneur at heart.
I believe in ambition. I believe in creating wealth, building companies, taking risks, and turning ideas into tangible achievements.
But I have increasingly come to question the assumption that a successful life and a meaningful life are necessarily the same thing.
What good is financial freedom if we remain prisoners of our own expectations?
What is the value of professional recognition if it comes at the expense of the relationships that give our lives meaning?
And what have we truly achieved if, after decades of building, we discover that we have forgotten how to simply live?
Some of the richest moments in my life have had very little to do with money.
A meaningful conversation. A moment with my daughter. A spontaneous journey. A genuine friendship. A shared meal. A moment of silence in a place far from home.
Perhaps we should stop asking only how much someone has achieved and begin asking how deeply they have lived.
Wealth can expand our possibilities. It cannot, by itself, give those possibilities meaning.
2. Why Do We Teach Children to Become Successful Before Teaching Them to Become Themselves?
As a father, this question has become increasingly personal.
From an early age, children are introduced to a system of expectations.
Perform well. Get good grades. Choose the right profession. Become financially independent. Build a respectable life.
And preferably, do all of this faster and better than everyone else.
But how often do we ask children who they actually want to become?
Not which profession they want to pursue.
Not how much money they hope to earn.
But what kind of human beings they want to be.
What makes them curious? What gives them joy? What frightens them? What do they believe is worth standing up for?
We have created educational systems that are often better at rewarding conformity than encouraging curiosity.
A child who memorizes the expected answer may be rewarded, while the child who challenges the question may be considered difficult.
Yet throughout history, progress has frequently come from people who refused to accept the expected answer.
I believe education should cultivate independent thought, emotional intelligence, creativity, resilience, and the courage to question authority respectfully.
It should teach children how to recover from failure, not simply how to avoid it.
And perhaps most importantly, it should teach them that their value as human beings is not determined by their grades, their achievements, or their ability to meet someone else’s expectations.
Our responsibility as parents is not to manufacture successful versions of ourselves. It is to help our children discover who they are capable of becoming.
3. Why Do We Consider Someone a Winner Only When Someone Else Has Lost?
Competition is deeply embedded in human society.
We compete in business, education, politics, sports, and even relationships.
Competition can be extraordinarily valuable. It encourages discipline, innovation, excellence, and the pursuit of improvement.
I enjoy competition. I understand its energy and its ability to push people beyond their perceived limitations.
But I question the belief that progress must always produce winners and losers.
In international business, some of the most meaningful achievements emerge not when one party defeats another, but when different interests are aligned to create something neither could have accomplished alone.
The same principle applies to diplomacy, interfaith dialogue, and international cooperation.
We have inherited a tendency to view the world through opposing categories.
East versus West.
Rich versus poor.
Religious versus secular.
One nation against another.
One ideology against its rival.
Yet the greatest challenges facing humanity do not respect these divisions.
Climate change does not recognize national borders. Disease does not ask which religion we follow. Artificial intelligence will not limit its consequences to one political system.
Perhaps the future belongs less to those who know how to defeat their opponents and more to those who know how to transform potential opponents into partners.
The highest form of competition may be the competition to create greater value, rather than to claim a larger share of what already exists.
4. If Progress Is Measured by What We Add, Who Measures What We Lose?
We live in an age of extraordinary technological acceleration.
Artificial intelligence, automation, biotechnology, digital platforms, and global connectivity are transforming nearly every dimension of human existence.
As someone deeply involved in technology, infrastructure, international trade, and emerging business models, I find these developments fascinating.
I believe technology can democratize opportunity, improve efficiency, expand access to knowledge, and create possibilities that previous generations could scarcely imagine.
But technological progress is not automatically human progress.
For every new capability we gain, we should also ask what we may be surrendering.
As communication becomes instantaneous, are our conversations becoming more meaningful?
As artificial intelligence makes information increasingly accessible, are we becoming wiser or merely faster at producing answers?
As digital platforms connect billions of people, why do so many still experience profound loneliness?
As algorithms learn to predict our preferences, are they expanding our freedom or gradually narrowing the range of ideas we encounter?
I do not believe the answer is to resist technology.
Quite the opposite.
I believe we must embrace innovation while remaining intellectually honest about its consequences.
The challenge is not to slow human progress, but to define progress more intelligently.
A civilization should not be judged only by the sophistication of its technology, but by what that technology enables human beings to become.
5. When Did We Begin Confusing Social Norms with Natural Laws?
Every society develops conventions.
Some are essential. They allow people to cooperate, establish trust, protect rights, and create stability.
Others survive simply because they have existed for generations.
We inherit ideas about family, careers, age, gender roles, religion, status, and acceptable behavior.
And over time, these ideas can become so familiar that we stop recognizing them as choices.
I have had the privilege of living and working across different countries and cultures, particularly between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this experience is discovering how differently people can organize their lives while being equally convinced that their own approach is natural.
What one society considers essential, another may regard as unnecessary.
What one generation considers unacceptable, the next may consider perfectly ordinary.
This does not mean every tradition is wrong or that every social convention should be discarded.
Traditions carry memory, wisdom, belonging, and continuity.
But respecting tradition should never require abandoning critical thought.
There is a profound difference between preserving a value because we understand its importance and preserving a rule because we are afraid to question it.
Culture should be a foundation from which we grow, not a ceiling beyond which we are forbidden to think.
6. Why Do We Search for the Truth About the World Before Examining the Filters Through Which We See It?
We like to believe that we see reality as it is.
But none of us does.
We interpret the world through our experiences, upbringing, education, beliefs, fears, ambitions, and personal histories.
Two people can witness the same event and arrive at entirely different conclusions.
Both may be sincere.
Both may be intelligent.
And both may be partially wrong.
This becomes particularly important in an era when information is abundant but attention is fragmented.
Social media algorithms reinforce our preferences. Political discourse rewards certainty. Public debate increasingly treats disagreement as hostility.
We are encouraged to take positions before we have taken the time to understand the questions.
In my work with people from different religious traditions, cultures, and geopolitical backgrounds, I have repeatedly encountered something that deserves greater recognition:
People who disagree profoundly can still share fundamental human values.
They may define those values differently. They may express them through different traditions. But beneath the differences, there is often a common desire for dignity, security, opportunity, belonging, and peace.
Interfaith dialogue has reinforced my conviction that understanding does not require agreement.
It requires the willingness to listen without immediately preparing a rebuttal.
The most dangerous form of ignorance may not be the absence of knowledge, but the certainty that we already possess the complete truth.
Intellectual maturity begins when we become capable of questioning our own convictions with the same intensity that we question those of others.
7. Are We Seeking Balance Between Opposites, or Are We Simply Trying to Silence What Makes Us Uncomfortable?
Human beings naturally seek coherence.
We want the world to make sense.
When we encounter ideas that contradict our beliefs, we experience discomfort.
Our instinct is often to reject the contradiction rather than investigate it.
But perhaps contradiction is not always a problem to be eliminated.
Perhaps it is sometimes an invitation to expand our understanding.
Ambition and contentment are not necessarily enemies.
Science and spirituality need not be mutually exclusive.
Tradition and innovation can coexist.
Individual freedom and collective responsibility can strengthen one another.
Strength and vulnerability can belong to the same person.
Throughout my life, I have encountered remarkable individuals whose qualities initially appeared contradictory.
Highly successful businesspeople with deep spiritual commitments.
Religious leaders with extraordinary intellectual openness.
People who have experienced profound hardship yet retained their generosity and optimism.
These encounters have reminded me that human beings are rarely as simple as the categories we use to describe them.
A mature society should be capable of holding competing ideas in thoughtful tension without immediately demanding that one destroy the other.
Wisdom is not always found in choosing between opposites. Sometimes it emerges from understanding why both exist.
8. Why Are We So Afraid to Change Our Minds?
There is another assumption that deserves examination.
We often treat consistency as a sign of integrity.
A person who maintains the same opinion for decades may be admired for having principles.
Someone who changes their position may be accused of weakness or inconsistency.
But what if changing our minds is sometimes evidence that we have learned something?
In business, refusing to adapt to new information can be disastrous.
Markets evolve. Technologies change. Strategies that worked yesterday become obsolete tomorrow.
Successful entrepreneurs must continually reassess their assumptions.
Why should we apply a different standard to our personal beliefs?
Why should a political opinion formed at twenty be immune to reconsideration at fifty?
Why should an understanding of another culture remain unchanged after meaningful exposure to its people?
Why should our definition of happiness remain fixed as our lives evolve?
I am not the same person I was thirty years ago.
Nor would I want to be.
My experiences have challenged some of my earlier convictions, strengthened others, and introduced questions I would never have thought to ask when I was younger.
That is not a betrayal of identity.
It is part of developing one.
Integrity should mean remaining faithful to our values, not remaining permanently attached to every conclusion we once reached.
9. What If the Purpose of Life Is Not to Reach a Final Destination?
Perhaps the greatest assumption we inherit is that life is a journey toward a particular destination.
We are encouraged to believe that happiness lies somewhere ahead.
After graduation.
After the next promotion.
After financial independence.
After the business succeeds.
After the children grow up.
After retirement.
We continuously postpone the experience of living until some future condition has been satisfied.
And when that condition finally arrives, we often discover another destination waiting beyond it.
I have lived enough, built enough, traveled enough, and experienced enough change to understand that life rarely follows the plans we make for it.
Sometimes the unexpected detour becomes the most meaningful part of the journey.
Sometimes failure reveals a direction that success would have concealed.
Sometimes the most important encounter is with someone we never intended to meet.
And sometimes what we believed was an ending turns out to be the beginning of an entirely different chapter.
I still have ambitions. I still want to build, create, contribute, and explore.
But increasingly, I believe that the quality of our lives depends less on reaching a final destination and more on our ability to remain curious, engaged, and present throughout the journey.
Perhaps a meaningful life is not one in which we eventually find all the answers, but one in which we never lose the courage to ask better questions.
The Responsibility to Think Beyond What We Have Inherited
We are living through a period of profound transformation.
Technological systems are evolving faster than many of our institutions.
Traditional economic models are being challenged.
Political and cultural divisions are reshaping international relationships.
Younger generations are questioning assumptions that previous generations regarded as unquestionable.
These developments can generate anxiety.
But they also offer an extraordinary opportunity.
An opportunity to reconsider what we value, how we educate, how we lead, how we cooperate, and what kind of civilization we wish to leave behind.
Through my work in entrepreneurship, international cooperation, and Salvator Mundi Global, I have become increasingly convinced that meaningful progress requires more than financial resources, technological capabilities, or political influence.
It requires a willingness to rethink the frameworks through which we understand the world.
It requires leaders who are comfortable admitting uncertainty.
Parents who encourage curiosity rather than blind obedience.
Educators who reward thoughtful questions rather than only correct answers.
Entrepreneurs who recognize that commercial success and social responsibility need not be opposing objectives.
And individuals who understand that differences in culture, belief, or perspective do not automatically make another human being an adversary.
We should never confuse questioning established ideas with rejecting everything that came before us.
The purpose of questioning is not destruction.
It is understanding.
It is distinguishing wisdom from habit, principles from prejudice, and genuine progress from mere change.
Above all, it is recognizing that the world we have inherited is not necessarily the only world we are capable of creating.
A Final Question
If I could leave my daughter, and perhaps the next generation more broadly, with one intellectual habit, it would be this:
Never be afraid to ask why.
Why must success look this way?
Why must we compete when we could collaborate?
Why must our differences divide us?
Why must technology advance faster than our humanity?
Why must we accept a limitation simply because previous generations lived within it?
And perhaps the most important question of all:
If we were designing our world today, knowing everything we now know, would we choose to build it exactly as it is?
If the answer is no, then we have a responsibility to imagine something better.
Not because we possess all the answers.
But because we have the capacity to ask the questions that may eventually lead us toward them.
The future will not be shaped only by those who have the greatest resources, the most advanced technology, or the loudest voices.
It will also be shaped by those who possess the curiosity to challenge what appears inevitable, the humility to reconsider what they believe, and the courage to act on what they discover.
The greatest danger to human progress may not be that we ask too many questions.
It may be that we have become too comfortable with the answers.
About the Author
Shlomi Selim “Sally” Benbasat
Co-Founder and Editor in Chief, Salvator Mundi Global and Salvator Mundi Times
Serial entrepreneur and investor in B2B e-commerce, carbon markets and emissions reduction (the Carbonica project), chemicals and raw materials trading, EPC, technology, telecommunications, digital media and real estate, with ventures built and exited across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
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