Many beliefs propagated through formal education (particularly in the social sciences) are theoretical and that's why so much wish-fulfillment goes unchecked. Theoretical beliefs only become practical when they have consequences which impact upon the believer; they say a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged.
Up to my late thirties, I had a lazy, egalitarian-socialist political philosophy in which I was strongly (or so I thought) opposed to paid medical care.
'No queue jumping!' I said to myself and to others.
In 1989 I had a really bad, painful attack of hemorrhoids while working on assignment in Italy (heritability 56% to 61% - my father also suffered) and found that my Nortel company medical scheme would pay for an immediate operation. The wait for NHS treatment would have been months and I would have found airport-hopping telecoms consultancy difficult while in graded varieties of pain.
What did I do?
I considered the matter for just a few hours - I would say for the first time in seriousness - and queue-jumped.
