There Are People Who Give Their Opinion As If They Were “universal Truths “

There are people like this, who offer us their indisputable opinion without our having asked them,  who proclaim their sincerity because it serves, according to them, to help others by making them listen to things they apparently need. These are ego-cluttered profiles who sell us their opinions as if they were absolute truths, always using the harshest criticism or the more negative side.

“It is clear that you are always looking for the less reliable companions / companions, I can already tell you that this one is going to cheat on you as soon as they can”. “I’m telling you for your own good. It is better that you take this objective off your head because this idea is too big for you ”. “These things happen to you because you have no character and because it is obvious that you will never learn from your mistakes”…

These sentences, more than opinions, are categorical sentences. Since many of us have suffered from the effects of these situations more than once, it is important to remember that  while we are all fully entitled to express our opinion, it is not. is not conceivable to use it to hurt, to humiliate or to despise. What is more, we must also know that opinions are simple personal expressions, simple reflections of the emotional and cognitive world of the people who express them.

However, as Leonardo da Vinci said, the worst mistake for a human being is to come to believe the lie of his own opinions,  because there is no greater ignorance than that of thinking that ‘personal opinion equals universal truth.

Our opinion can act like a chain

Our opinions can become, on many occasions, our own chains. Think about it for a moment:  when a person gives an opinion about us, they do so based on their own reality, their experience and their values. So far everything is normal ; this is what is expected, and we understand it. However, in this process we find what in psychology is called “attention bias” / “confirmation bias”.

That is to say  that there are those who perceive only what they want to see and those who limit themselves to observing certain aspects in order to make inaccurate and formidably biased judgments. Therefore, the so-called rational choice theory tells us that many of these heuristics that we apply to our thoughts and opinions respond to simple “hunches”, to simplistic value judgments that cause us to fall into more than one error. .

All of this no doubt makes us understand why some people set their own mental chains when they come to such questionable conclusions as “women are inherently weak”, “children need to learn the hard way” or “ all those who practice a religion other than mine are terrorists ”.

On the other hand, and we have already noted on more than one occasion,  those who make use of their defining and hurtful opinions usually react very negatively and even try to cheat on personal grounds when we try to refute their arguments  by bringing logical and reasonable principles. These people will not accept them, will not listen to them, because these mental chains give shape to a very rigid thought. In fact, many define these types of people as our real-life “trolls”.

If you’re gonna give me your opinion, make it useful

We can and should all give our opinion on what we want. However, it is necessary to do this with respect and without offending people. It does not matter whether it is a hurting truth: if it is useful and decisive to us, it will be welcome.

Let us therefore try to  control these value judgments which, even if we do not realize it, come directly to us from the cerebral amygdala,  where emotions like fear, hatred or fury prevail, where we are gives their opinion in order to hurt, label or despise others in order to feel superior to them.

Moreover, in this society where these strong but weakly supported opinions abound such as “vote for me or the world will turn into chaos”, “buy this product and you will be happy” or “lose weight, dress like this, do this and you will be socially successful ”, it is necessary  to learn to practice another type of thinking, another personal point of view.

Let’s learn to detach ourselves a little from our opinions to allow ourselves to see beyond. Before telling our friend, for example, that the dress she is wearing is horrible, let’s ask ourselves if she isn’t wearing it just because she likes it and because her style is different from ours. In addition, we must always think of Aristotle’s three truths filter, which is always useful:

• Are you absolutely sure that what you are going to say is true?
• This thing that you are going to say, will it be a good thing?
• Can this opinion that you are going to express be useful for this particular person?

If the answer to these three questions is positive, let’s do it, let’s dare to give our opinion to improve cohabitation, guarantee respect between men, thus creating valid and meaningful relationships.