Suppose they are right

A tailor in Dubai has run his small shop the same way for fifteen years. Customers drop in and wait their turn, and he likes it that way. When his nephew suggests taking fittings by appointment, he explains, patiently, why that would never work. When a regular says the same thing a month later, he explains it more firmly.

This is how most of us behave. Criticism rarely loosens a conviction. It usually tightens it. Each objection becomes a chance to rehearse the defence, and the defence improves with practice.

Some of that is healthy. Nobody builds anything while doubting every step. Certainty is part of what lets a person commit to a craft for fifteen years in the first place.

But there is a small exercise worth trying now and then, and it costs almost nothing. Take the suggestion and play it out as though it were correct. Not to agree, only to look. If the nephew is right, what does next month look like? Who comes in who does not come now? Which regular drifts away? What changes on a Saturday morning?

Sometimes the answer is that the old way was right after all, and he can return to it with a clearer reason than before. Sometimes the answer holds one useful thing, a calmer afternoon, a customer who never had time to wait, and he can keep that one thing and leave the rest.

Either way, nothing is lost by wearing the other view for an hour. Conviction is not a door that locks behind you. It will still be there in the morning.