We all have opinions on just about everything. Sharing our opinion is part of the human experience. Expressing opinions is our way of articulating what we think about something in particular, or things in general; about how we believe something or someone makes us feel; what we believe about life and our life experience; about reality and truth. Through our opinions we announce to the world who we think we are and our position on an infinite number of topics. Sometimes our opinions are conscious and vetted responses, and sometime unconscious and unchecked reactions. Both are valid and real with regard to our personal experience, yet neither is accurate or true beyond the borders of our emotional and mental filters. This is not an opinion, but a fact.
In A Course In Miracle, Manual for Teachers, 10. How Is Judgment Relinquished? we are invited to consider how,
“In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things, past, present, and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgements on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgement would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it reacts, now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?
Remember how many times you thought you knew all the facts you needed for judgement, and how wrong your were! Is there anyone who has not had this experience? Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right, without ever realizing you were wrong? Who would you choose such an arbitrary basis for decision-making? Wisdom is not judgment; it is the relinquishment of judgement.”
Let’s be real—there is no way on Earth we are going to re-wire our cultural practice of opinion projection. I mean, what would we talk about during Happy Hour gathering or stitch-and-bitch quilting sessions? So, rather than worrying about being “spiritually evolved”—getting stressed out over vetting our every thought, word, and opinion—how about we just get clear that our personal opinions are just that, an individual perspective, a view informed by mind-filters, a contribution to the opinion pool, to be offered for considered.
One of my favorite disclaimers when expressing an opinion is, “I could be wrong, but not likely …” It always gets a laugh, and I’m off the hook for fooling myself or anyone into confusing my opinion and the facts, with wisdom and the truth.
