One of the reasons I have pulled back a lot from social media, is my highly ingrained urge to be right.

To have the right answers.

To know what stuff means and tell people.

To be the ultimate judge, the fact factory.

To know it all.

And to deeply believe that is true.

Many social platforms just tease this out of me.

When I scroll around there’s a lot of spontaneous repulsion, frustration and superiority going on inside of me.

And I just don’t like how that feels, at least in the long run (because in the short run it feels pretty fucking powerful and real and important).

Having an opinion doesn’t mean you’re right.

It just means you’re having an opinion, which is a rather random thing.

We know that, kinda.

What makes it very enticing to believe them, is how they are neatly wedged in between millions of other opinions and ideas, therefore creating your personal environment.

Our opinions don’t feel like opinions: they feel like the world, like the truth.

They feel like good and bad.

So what if you want to create some space around that?

The most difficult thing is that everything in our life seems to revolve around opinions and assessments and judgments.

They are everywhere, always.

How are you doing?

What do you think about that?

How’s the weather?

Is Corona just some flu and/or part of a huge conspiracy?

Are you a spiritual person?

Are you happy, and if not: who’s to blame?

Did you like the movie?

What do you think about the president?

Or hotdogs?

Artificial Intelligence?

Racism?

Capitalism?

The new coffee at Starbucks?

And don’t you agree that what is going on is horrible / amazing / scary / perfect / unfair?

It is everywhere, all the time.

A big part of it is obviously very innocent and it even spices up life and somehow becomes part of the person we believe to be, and that is pretty cool.

It’s just that it also keeps me in that place of always wanting to ventilate what I think about something.

I don’t want that.

Or at least less of it.

And I totally get the irony that having an opinion about opinions seems to be just another opinion.

But I think it’s way more than that.

I believe I am wasting precious time defending ideas that only seem to be personal and true in the moment.

I think that my automatic judgments get in the way of seeing the world in a different light, and that even if I adopt an opposite opinion (which is supposed to be a good and noble thing), it’s still an opinion.

I feel much better when I don’t engage in yet another daily opinion rampage.

And I have noticed that feeling good is an excellent gauge for the quality of my life.

You don’t have to agree though.

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(Photo by @pawel_czerwinski)