What’s Your Opinion?

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” ― William Blake

 

Truer words were never spoken. One thing that constantly nags at me is the need for people to be right. Why? Can I not have my own views and beliefs and you have yours? Why does your beliefs, opinions and views have to override mine? Why do we have to keep going back and forth in order to have to the last say, instead of respecting each other’s belief system?

 

Freedom of expression and the right to speak freely is extremely important and should be highly encouraged. However, in this world of social media and clouting, everyone wants to have the last word on every single trending topic. And you know what? If there are contrary views, woe betide you to voice it out. The days of twitter clique, “clouting” and the desperate need to belong have hindered the channel of having a mature conversation.

Just to refresh our memory in case we have forgotten the acceptable definition of an opinion – “it is a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter” according to Merriam – Webster dictionary. That definition does not include an “objective judgment, or objective appraisal”, if anything it screams “subjective judgment”.

 

I have realized that this is a major con in the advent of technology and social media – a voice who wants to be an authority behind an electronic device and in some cases, even in person.

Anyway, I’ve got news for you! Your opinion can only be yours and no matter how hard you try, you cannot force someone else to see things the way you do except they are open minded enough to understand things from your perspective; otherwise, it just won’t work!

Morality and justice are subjective and solely depends on what side of the table you’re seated. So many factors are responsible in forming an opinion – family background, religion, race, gender, life experiences, relationships, lifestyle etc. and thus the reason why I believe everything is subjective.

 

I usually say, “there is only one truth and no matter how you choose to look at it, it’ll never change”. However, life has kind of taught me that everyone has their own truth and it cannot be the same for everyone. My truth is peculiar to me, and yours may be peculiar to you too.

We should all take the wisdom spoken in Proverbs 18:2 – “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” to heart. The most important thing we have to learn and imbibe is to respect each other’s truth, maintain open- mindedness when listening to someone else’s truth and ponder on whatever was revealed by the other person, instead of trying to maintain that your own truth is the only one that exists.

 

“This is my grandfather’s axe. My father replaced the head and I replaced the handle. Is this still my grandfather’s axe?”