If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you

A few years ago in Sunday School, one of the wiser members of our church made a comment regarding opinions. He said something along the lines of, “If you pay close attention, you will notice that the people who are generally likable  and the people who are genuinely looked up to in our society are people who are very careful about sharing their opinions. They are people who think before they speak.”

Until that point, I’d always been pretty free with my invaluable opinions without ever giving it much thought.

If someone I knew bought a rice cooker, I would openly tell that person that rice cookers are stupid.

If someone mentioned Twilight in my presence, I would give them a thirty minute presentation about why I think Edward Cullen is a weenie (umm… sorry Twilight enthusiasts. I assure you, I've stopped doing this).

I’ve spent most of my life letting people know where I stand because – heaven forbid – someone not know how I feel about unnecessary kitchen appliances, fictional teenage vampires, and every other minute aspect of life.

After hearing that comment in Sunday School, I became very aware of the opinions around me – my own and those of the people I socialize with. It didn’t take long for me to realize how correct Brother Wise Man was in his comment; people are truly more likable when they are tactful and respectful about the opinions they share.

I’ve noticed, in the past few months, how destructive antagonistic opinions can be. They stir up negative emotions and create unneeded contention. It seems to be a common habit in our world for people to constantly declare dislike and hatred for every little, nit-picky, insignificant thing. This is one aspect of social networking that I don’t like – someone updates their status on Facebook to say:

i absolutley hate those stupid FAKE cowboys at school! i wish they could see how ugly and retarted they look!!

(directly copied from my "friend's" wall)

…and immediately upon reading it, I  feel angry and want to share my own opinion (which is that people who can’t spell ‘retarded’ shouldn’t be using the word to describe other people), and I’m not even a stupid FAKE cowboy at school.

Did my "friend" (who is obviously a teenager who has a lot to learn) accomplish anything worthwhile by making that statement? No. She fueled a forest fire, and it’s a FACT that forest fires suck.

I realize that I used an extreme example here, but opinions don’t have to be that negative to be destructive. Something as simple as insulting something that someone else loves can have the same effect. Just ask my neighbor, Stacy, about the time she insulted The Book Thief.

Talk about a forest fire…

I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else, but lately I’ve been focusing on the Gift of Shutting Up and the Art of Liking Things instead of constantly being critical.

In my opinion (sorry, can’t help it), it’s much better to be for something than it is to be against something. I don’t mean to imply that you should turn your beliefs around – that’s not the point of this at all. What I mean by that is that we should all put a little more effort into the things we like and the things we believe in instead of constantly focusing on declaring what we hate.

I might be against Edward Cullen, but I’m for reading.

I might be against rice cookers, but I’m for food.

(In fact, I’m one of food’s greatest supporters. If food were a politician, I’d totally let food put a sign in my yard. I’m just sayin…)

Should I test my relationships with rice cooker lovers by insulting something they love? There’s no value in that! I’m not going to single-handedly change the world by publicly hating rice cookers. I can, however, be influential by sharing my positive and valuable opinions.

Take for example, my opinion of crepes.

I love crepes.

Now maybe someone who has never had a crepe will go try one because I said something positive about them, and that person will really like crepes, too. Maybe we’ll go get a crepe together and talk about our smelly kids and have a really good time.

What if I hated crepes? I wouldn’t change anyone’s life by posting a crepe hating facebook status. If anything, I would make a crepe lover feel degraded and picked on.

That’s what negative opinions do.

Perhaps we should all share less of them.

It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged