In My Opinion

Today I am again recognizing the tyranny of my own opinions regarding other people's affairs. I have opinions about so many things that are none of my business. I have opinions about things in which I have less than zero expertise. There is a sickness inside of me that believes I have it is my right to have and express those opinions.

There have been times where I have heard a story about people I have never met that are going through a situation I have never experienced and I quickly spit out what they ought to do. A person's life can be so complex and full of unseen factors that it is literally impossible (unless God brings revelation) for me to know with any surety what they should have done from afar.

One of my least favorite things to hear said to anyone is "You know what you would if you were smart?" Because implied in that is that what you have been doing is not smart and the person speaking is going to now give you a tutorial on what an intelligent person would do.
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This next story is embarrassing. As a very young adult I worked with several older men who had opinions on everything. Over time I had heard them criticize a certain businessman from Detroit repeatedly. His intelligence and his ethics were consistently attacked. They had opinions like that about all kinds of people. I would listen and learn waiting for the chance to regurgitate their opinions as my own and sound smart (so I thought).

Some time later I was in a training class for a new job I had taken. During one of the breaks someone had a newspaper and there was a story about that certain businessman from Detroit. Ignoring all common sense, I said that the man "is an illiterate criminal". It wasn't enough for me to have an uninformed opinion. No, I needed to have a really BIG DUMB uninformed opinion. The sweet young lady that I was sharing a desk with looked over at me and said quietly, "He is my uncle."

Horrifying isn't it? The man that I slandered could have been a mixture of Billy Graham and Ghandi rolled into one. I probably wouldn't have recognized him if he would have squeezed in and sat down between me and his niece. Yet that didn't stop me. I had no right having an opinion about someone I didn't know well much less someone I had never met.

I try (occasionally with success) to catch myself now and not give people opinions about things that:
a) I do not understand
b) I was not asked for an opinion about
c) will not be improved by me having an opinion.

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