Opinions Become Facts

I constantly watch and listen to people around me.  I've always been a people watcher because sometimes it provides plenty of free entertainment.  Today while traveling, I heard someone making statements as if they were fact.  Of course, these statements were nothing but this person's opinion.  There was absolutely nothing to back them up.

In our world, there is so much of this type of behavior.  It happens in all walks of life.  It happens in the media, in the office, at home and just about every place in-between.  We often point the fingers at others and call them out on their own opinions, only to close our blind eyes to our own shortcomings.

One could say that my blog is just nothing more than my opinions.  I'm sure you could make a case for that and I probably could not defend every statement I make on here or elsewhere in life. I try hard, but I also fail. Fortunately there are people in my life that will call me out on it when I jump overboard into the sea of my own opinions.


What I attempt to do on this blog and in my life is share my experiences.  After all, if I tell you what I have experienced, that is not my opinion.  It is what has happened to me or what I've seen with my own two eyes.  It is all I truly know because everything else is something that I've picked up along the road of life.

It is sad though when I see people expressing their opinions in a dogmatic way, without the hint of even questioning what they are saying.  I've seen this in churches and religious institutions and I've seen it in the new age and alternative movement.  I've seen it time and time again in the corporate culture of our society as well as every day society.   It happens every where we go and almost every moment of the day.

Why do we just accept these things and why do people make theses statements?  This is a question I cannot answer.  I have often found that those who make the loudest and boldest claims are generally the ones that have nothing to base their assumptions on.  Its too easy to make a statement, but it requires much more diligence to be able to back it up.

The media is a wonderful example of how opinions become fact.  I laugh at the "panels of experts" these media outlets have on their shows making it appear that all of these opinions together give the appearance of well rounded fact.  Can we not do better than this?

Its up to each one of us to be mindful of what we say and claim in our lives.  If we can't back it up, is it worth making a statement into fact?   If we can't observe our statements from all angles, are they really well thought out tidbits, or are they just the way we express the ego in its desire for gratification?

Read and listen to statements you make and others make with a mind that questions and really asks the tough questions.  Just because someone else stated it to be true and then someone wrote about it on the internet, and someone else sourced it as fact; it does not mean that the statement has any worth or validity to it.  To repeat something, does not mean an opinion is fact.  It just means someone repeated it.

Find truth in all that you do and all that you allow into your life.  Don't settle for opinions becoming fact because it is easier to do that, than it is to evaluate it.  If we all became more truthful in our daily  lives, the world would evolve to a higher plane of understanding that we've never seen.  The possibilities are endless in our world, but not if opinions become facts.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 1/20/14 by Don Shetterly

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