No Opinions

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 Why should anyone care about what you have to say?

This sounds aggressive and a somewhat rude question to ask, but it's an important one. What makes you think that your opinion should be heard? Obviously the right to say what you want to say should be protected, but what are you actually saying? 

People have hot and heavy hands that allow them to put out their opinions at the drop of the hat and push of a button. It makes us feel good to speak out minds. Some of us vent. Some of express our gratitude. Some of us give our hot takes of the current events that are currently spiraling into reality at every second and turn. The opportunities to express ourselves in words seems to have reached an almost limitless potential. 

All of our opinions come from a certain place. A type of center. A point of perception molded by the past and our own unique experiences. Opinions are tied to memory and we all know how memory can be misleading, murky and distorted. Does that mean that all opinions are just products of the past? Can we truly have any "new" opinions?

Social Media has allowed us to develop some pretty severe FOMO disorders. The Fear of Missing Out. The powerlessness we may feel in our day to day lives. It feels good that we can express our feelings, but at the end of the day it comes down to whether we even SHOULD express them.

If we start sharing our opinions without any thread of self awareness, we fall into habits and patterns that we may not see. Every time you share an opinion, you open yourself to more opinions from others. The more freely you share what you think, the more you will start to corner yourself into your own limited world view. The more you talk without listening, the more you might tune out other opinions or facts that could contribute towards your own personal growth. It's the idea that people care about what we have to say that can turn into a problem.

When we are just waiting to speak and not listening, what are we offering....?

Once we start getting attention or interaction from others when we share our opinions, we feel like we can share more. It gives us little dopamine boosts. It can give us a sense of meaning in a sometime meaningless and tense world. We may let it get to our heads and most of the time that is exactly what happens. Our opinions can lead us to uncharted places or back into the same corners we have been running into all these years.

Sometimes the best thing to do it SHUT UP and just listen. Just shake your head and give thanks.

Most of us express our opinions with the idea that people will interact. We crave the reaction and attention. This is bad thing per say, but something to observe. Some of us end up diverting more time and energy towards the response of our opinions than the actual expression of the opinion itself. Did we really mean to speak or mind or were we trying to call out to others for validation, attention or confrontation?

Your perception is distorted and very personal. Check yourself before you think you think you know what is actually going on. 

The problem may lie within the identification with the opinions. When our opinions become a crucial part of our identity then we can get lost. We can create boxes and blind spots around our vision. If we start to believe everything we think, than we can shut off to what is actually happening. If identifying with our opinions can lead to conflict, imagine what we can do if we can just watch our opinions as if they are birds coming to perch upon the branch of a tree. The tree can be our minds and our consciousness. If we start to think that we are the birds, then we stop being the stillness that is the tree. If we try to cage the bird and dress it up we will create stress and pain, but if we just welcome them to our branches then they can be free and fly away when need be. 

Just because you can say it, doesn't mean that it needs to be said.

Another thing to question about your opinions is if they are based in gratitude and not resentment, disgust and personal preference. Ideally, most opinions should be based in curiosity and constructive nature. Think of good opinions as seeds. If the seeds are bad and aren't planted correctly, they will not grow. Why try to plant seeds that you know aren't going to grow? When a seed grows into a plant, then it can produce fruit or some type of beneficial product. A very fruitful opinion can help feed the confidence and creativity of another person. Great opinions are like gifts and learning tools for people on different paths. You never know how an authentic person can really change someone's perception for the better. 

Opinions are always changing even if we think we have the same opinions we have had before. When we get a fixed set of opinions, then we limit ourselves and subject our minds to stagnation and complacency. The only constant truly is change.

When we think we know more than we actually know, then we start to bloviate our egos. Inflating our sense of self. Building up our defenses. To be humble, is to not brag and think you know more than others. In some sense you might hold more knowledge or information, but there can always be something new to be learned even if we think we can't possibly learn anything new in the first place. 

The idea that you are so confident with what you believe can lead to stagnation and a path of self righteous dogma. We all know that there is always more we can know, but we tend to get so caught in our ways that it's easy to forget that. It's rather easy to reduce things into edible bites and binaries, but it doesn't lead us towards a path of growth. Things are much more complicated than we realize. Shouldn't our opinions somewhat reflect that? Shouldn't we want to be curious and not totally align with things that may or may not be true? 

Curiosity is key. An almost childlike type of playfulness and inquisitiveness can allow us to find out answers for ourselves and stumble upon things we would have never seen if we were dogmatically aligned with a limited world view. There are many ways to question the why and how of the workings of the universe. There are many ways to tell others how you feel about something. It is what makes us human. It is what makes us learn from one another. We must question the efficacy and necessity of each opinion that we hold. Do we really need to share it with the world or can we keep asking questions to dig deeper? Can we invest our conscious effort to investigate why we feel the way we feel and why we choose to say how we feel to others? It is self awareness that can lead us to a more conscious sense of being. A state of curiosity, spontaneity and wonder that doesn't rely on getting attention from others. 

Would we really say anything if we thought that nobody was listening? 

What do we really know and how do we know that we really even know?

DG