How does one know they are right?

What is the difference between knowing and being plain stubborn?

How does one know that what they do is working for them? How do you know you are living right, especially if you are straying from the social conventions in one way or another?

How does one know that they are on the right side?

I think it depends, in part, about what you are talking about.

There are somethings that are pretty concrete and have right and wrong. example - boiling water is hot enough to harm me. There is evidence to prove this. I can be stubborn and insist it is not true, but if I stick my hand in a pot of boiling water I'm going to be hurt.

Things like social norms are so different. They are more individual. You mention if something is working for the person. Again, that's so individual. Back in the 60's in the US people like Martin Luther King Jr. acted way outside the social norms. It lead to his death. I presume Mr. King acted as he did because he believed he was right. Society said he was wrong.

I've not fit in with the majority for most of my life. For me the guiding factor has been to do no harm. Does that makes sense?

Sounds good to me. That question is so much more complex than it appears on the surface. I don't think you always can know in the short term.Sometimes I go with my heart and sometime on cold calculation. I can't tell that either one has a higher percentage of success.
If we could always know then we'd rarely make mistakes and have fewer regrets.
In other works I don't have a good answer

If the question is about how you live your life, your own opinion is the only one that matters.

Society said he was wrong? Some part did. A lot said he was right.

On the original question, I tend to think I am right when things have the least "cognitive dissonance". Kind of an inner sense of things matching. It proves to be valuable.

One way i know i'm right is when doors open for me to help me on my way. Good coincidences happen.

The other thing is, it has to be right for YOU. You are educated and open-minded. Maybe you cannot convince other people - for instance your mother - of your views. She cannot understand them. But you need to live up to the best of YOUR ability. Not bend down to her limited understanding. That is called taking responsibility for yourself. Otherwise, if you only live to her standards, you relinquish your control and responsibility for your life to her.

You don't - that is life. You can make judgement, opinions and so on, and then you can test them by asking people for their thoughts, looking for proof or disproof , trying things out (carefully if possible), gather data etc.

This takes a lot of time and energy so you only do it for the important or startling things, the rest of the time you kind of run on autopilot using your knowledge, experience, education, senses, intuition - you get the picture I am sure.

Most people get much partially or completely wrong and you change views and thereby add to your experience and knowledge. Stubborn folk are rather slower to change than is quite wise, but they have their reasons. It is no big deal to get things wrong - you are just one step dafter than the next person. I like Winston Churchill's comment: [I have] had to eat my own words many times, and I have found it a very nourishing diet.

hi, it is difficult to know for sure. Some of us believe they are right but in reality they are not. I am still working on such paradoxes. There is only one way, that is right way for all.
thx

Sat thinking for a minute on how to approach this without seeming argumentative. You're right in part (imo)... At the end of the day it is 'our life' and as such no one else can call the shots on how we live it unless we let them... I do think there are questionable factors at play though: morality, such as you living your life in a way that harms others.

With that said and in response to the OP on 'knowing/stubborn' I guess it's down to a lot of factors - learnt behaviour from our parents when we were a child for example. Or weighing up the advice of others and making a decision based on their life experiences as well as our own.

Quaintly enough this topic reminded me of a phrase my dad used to tell me as a child - "a fool learns from his own mistakes, a wiseman learns from others"

Of course with age I now know that it's inevitable that we will all make mistakes as we travel along life's road... But I am observant of what others tell me and I do now and again have the warning bells go off if caught in a situation that though not personally familiar too... I've picked up from other peoples stories.

Yes, I agree with you on this. I haven't been expressing myself well lately. Also, I guess we need to include that the way you live shouldn't hurt yourself, either.