Episode 19 - Opinions: Everyone and their dog has one

Letters to my kids: A suicide survivor's lessons and advice for life

Opinions: Everyone and their dog has one

Music: “Just A Blip” by Andy G. Cohen From the Free Music Archive Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance" - Plato

Humans are social animals.

-We spend our entire lives applying for acceptance into a social circles. Whether it be a clique at school, a university, a job with a company, or a movement, we’re always looking for a pace to belong.

-When your community starts to form negative opinions about you, your work, or any other aspect of your life, you naturally start to feel insecure. Your sense of safety dissolves and you feel forced to fight back or run away and hide in your room for the rest of eternity.

1.) Calibrate and trust your internal compass. First and foremost, you have to have a strong sense of who you are.

If you don’t know who you are, anyone’s misinformed opinion can shatter your entire sense of self worth. This forms your internal compass which you have to trust. Trust yourself and trust that you can, and do, make good decisions.

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought" - John F Kennedy

2.) Get comfortable disagreeing with others. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you (personally or professionally) doesn’t mean their shitty shit-faced people who should be skewered and fed to a shit load of shitty dinosaurs. As long as you’ve completed #1 you should have no problem having a fun discussion about your differing opinions with others.

3.) Practice, practice, practice. Speak your mind often. But practice honesty with mindfulness and kindness, as previously covered.

Now, don’t go out and start giving unsolicited free advice. That’s annoying. But whenever you’re in a position to give your opinion or contribute to a discussion, do it. The more practice you have speaking your mind, the more negative (and positive) feedback you’ll get. You’ll naturally get better at handling this feedback in a way that’s not self-destructive.

"Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity" - Michel de Montaigne

4.) Manage your expectations. What are you expecting from this person and what conclusion are you drawing from their opinion? Do you expect everyone to like you or what you do?

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation" - Oscar Wilde

5.) Get real. The majority of the opinions other people have about you will not affect you. The world doesn’t change just because people agree with you.

If you’re not ok with who you are, all of the positive feedback in the world won’t make you like yourself while one negative opinion will shatter your fragile, fictional sense of self-worth.

It’s Ok

I’m not asking you to ignore everyone’s opinion. I’m not telling you not to care about the opinions of others. I’m not even asking you not to feel bad over negative opinions.

"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" Leonardo Da Vinci