Conventional wisdom is usually right, and we should generally listen when we don't have the time to think things through, because we rationally can't think everything through. But confirming you made the right decision generally comes from running rigorous mental experiments or making mistakes yourself, tracing the consequences back to their source, and arriving at the truth on your own terms. A friend once told me about a statistics teacher who put it well: you can glide down the ski mountain and take the class with ease if you do the prereqs and really understand the material, or you can brute force your way through. You finish the class either way, and maybe even with the same grade, but one process is obviously more fulfilling.
This is what blindly taking conventional wisdom is like: it will probably work, and you will likely arrive at the same place without having to bear the cognitive dissonance. However, it's hard to know you're right when you gulp down the optimal policy recommendation without running the reinforcement learning yourself. There are certain inflection points in your life where you have to make decisions that you should be absolutely right about (career, spouse, etc). For these, be skeptical for however long it takes.
me and carly :))