{"id":1050,"date":"2024-09-05T20:45:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T20:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/?p=1050"},"modified":"2024-09-09T22:14:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T22:14:02","slug":"wanna-end-war-lose-your-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/2024\/09\/05\/wanna-end-war-lose-your-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanna End War? Lose Your Opinion."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ever hear this one?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>A@#holes and opinions: everybody&#8217;s got one.. and they all stink.<\/em><strong><em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong>~Anonymous<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Crass as it may be, there is truth to this americana blue-collar adage of yore.<br>We&#8217;ve all got &#8217;em&#8211;good, bad and ugly. But do our opinions really serve us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a Chinese proverb that goes something like this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, \u201cYour horse ran away, what terrible luck!\u201d (Opinion)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The farmer replied, \u201cMaybe so, maybe not. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, \u201cYour horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!\u201d (Opinion &#8211; you get the point)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/msgsndr\/8AMG6PUcwesZyj5kxsJX\/media\/65982a938619068613b15d6a.jpeg\" alt=\"#opinion #endwar #peace #unity #collaboration\" title=\"#opinion #endwar #peace #unity #collaboration\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The farmer replied, \u201cMaybe so, maybe not. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Later that week, the farmer\u2019s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, \u201cYour son broke his leg, what terrible luck!\u201d (You get it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The farmer replied, \u201cMaybe so, maybe not. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer\u2019s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, \u201cYour boy is spared, what tremendous luck!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To which the farmer replied, \u201cMaybe so, maybe not. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>See how easy it is to slip into opinionating?<br>We do it all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>It makes me think of Star Wars.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember how we all thought Darth Vader was the bad guy for all that time&#8211;opinion&#8211;but in the end, he&#8217;s the one who wound up killing the&nbsp;<em>really&nbsp;<\/em>bad guy, the Emperor?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One might opine that Vader was a&nbsp;<em>really bad guy,&nbsp;<\/em>right? If not for ol&#8217; Vader, those rebels wouldn&#8217;t have mobilized and a bunch of other stuff might not have happened, which ultimately restored balance to the galaxy. True.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>And<\/em>&nbsp;there were a bunch of folks who either knew or knew about Vader&#8211;knew he was a bad guy&#8211;had their&nbsp;<em>opinions&nbsp;<\/em>about him, yet&nbsp;<em>did<\/em>&nbsp;nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>See, opinions are sort of like&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/angelinafrost.com\/blog\/b\/hope-its-not-all-its-cracked-up-to-be\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hope<\/a>, in that they give the false sense that we&#8217;re&nbsp;<em>doing something about it,&nbsp;<\/em>when in fact we&#8217;re doing nothing. Really. Nothing at all. Another thing is, opinions are usually about things that are either 1) none of our business or, 2) outside our circle of influence. (see: You Matter)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Star Wars, the rebels didn&#8217;t have time for opinions. There was work to be done, and there was nothing in them that could resist taking the actions they took&#8211;actions which&nbsp;<em>needed<\/em>&nbsp;to be taken by&nbsp;<em>them,<\/em>&nbsp;in that dire time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They certainly didn&#8217;t sit around and indulge what they&nbsp;<em>thought&nbsp;<\/em>about the situation at hand. Their&nbsp;<em>opinions,&nbsp;<\/em>if they had them, were mute and would have likely hampered right and timely action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s another important point that surfaces here: the rebels weren&#8217;t bothering with contemplations about things that had nothing to do with them. They were focused on what was&nbsp;<em>theirs<\/em>&nbsp;to take care of, and&nbsp;<em>nothing&nbsp;<\/em>else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Imagine if everyone, everywhere just let things that were none of their business be what they are, rather than getting emotionally involved about things like how so-n-so dresses, or who&#8217;s sleeping with whom or what your neighbor calls God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can you imagine how much energy it would save us all? All that wasted energy would get directed way more creatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How so? Opinions are generally negative in nature and make us feel grumpy because of it. If we weren&#8217;t all so grumpy, the energy we had available would get directed creatively.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just a hunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if my hunch were right, imagine all the misunderstandings that&nbsp;<em>wouldn&#8217;t<\/em>&nbsp;happen, all of the resulting tiffs, arguments, fights or outright&nbsp;<em>wars&nbsp;<\/em>that would be avoided&#8230; all if we relinquished one simple &#8220;right&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s true: you do have a right to your opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m just curious, how much is your right costing you?&nbsp;How much of your creativity is it costing the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do you think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to hear your stories about how an opinion got you or someone you know into a pinch, or made a tough situation worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Did that opinion result in creative action? What did it result in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Share your stories in the comment section below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>See ya next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever hear this one?&nbsp; A@#holes and opinions: everybody&#8217;s got one.. and they all stink.&nbsp;~Anonymous Crass as it may be, there is truth to this americana blue-collar adage of yore.We&#8217;ve all got &#8217;em&#8211;good, bad and ugly. But do our opinions really serve us? There is a Chinese proverb that goes something like this\u2026 A farmer and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1471,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions\/1471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}