What I learnt by the end of the month-long trial was surprising: There’s a conservative streak that runs through me.

The initial plan was to adopt an extreme right-wing stance, to test how it feels. The whole thing was intended as a stretching exercise for the mind, nothing more.

Day One of the experiment proved unsettling. It started with small things, such as reframing news headlines to view them through conservative eyes. Narratives on “government overreach” had to now be read as conspiracy theory.

It wasn’t long before friends started to notice. “What’s gotten into you?” some asked.

The real jolt, however, came not from those who questioned the new posture, but from certain personal reactions that did not feel entirely fake.

A serious aversion to foul language, for instance, had always existed but gone unacknowledged. Suddenly, the right-wing stand offered an outlet. It became acceptable to say, “No, that word is out of bounds” or “There’s a line that can’t be crossed.”

For all my liberal leaning, I realised there had always been a personal red line marking how far free expression should go.

The question of chivalry towards women emerged next. At home, the teenage daughters balk at any hint of a “patronising” stance. They say independence, at their stage in life, includes not being treated as delicate beings that need an elder to watch over them. Reflexively stepping in to “protect” when no protection was asked for is, of course, second nature for most parents of teens. On the liberal stage, that behaviour felt outdated, even mildly sexist. But with my temporary conservative outlook, it was simply consistent with my moral code. And, “old-fashioned” was no longer a bad word.

Some days into the experiment, a suspicion started to creep in: perhaps “liberal” was never the best descriptor for me. Perhaps it never represented the whole picture.

By the last week of the experiment, I was beginning to make peace with some serious contradictions in me. Of course, there are some things I will never be right-leaning on, particularly when it comes to broader social issues. But I have to admit that certain conservative instincts felt like coming home to an honest reflection of personal boundaries.

Ending the experiment was both a relief and a challenge. It has been impossible to erase what surfaced in those weeks. When a vulgar term slips out of someone’s mouth, there is the urge to object. When free speech comes up in conversation, it feels disingenuous to present a purely liberal defence, without mentioning the discomfort that arises when certain lines are crossed.

When chivalrous habits make an appearance, a private inner voice reminds me that while these may be outdated, they are part of a personal moral code that I still hold to.

What does it all mean? Put simply: Self-definition is trickier than wearing a neat label like “liberal” or “conservative.” Even our most core beliefs may contain a contradictory set of instincts or values.

If that sounds disconcerting, perhaps it should be. We were never meant to live by absolutes.

Real people do not fit snugly into ideological boxes. To me, this signals good news. It means we likely have more in common than today’s shrill discourse would suggest.

Perhaps that is the deeper value of contradiction practice: not proving one side right or wrong, but revealing that even our most cherished personal truths can benefit from being contradicted now and then.

(Charles Assisi is co-founder of Founding Fuel. He can be reached on assisi@foundingfuel.com)