Opinions: Psychoscope July 13th, 2019

Expressing strong opinion presupposes a conviction. A conviction presupposes high level of expertise. High level of expertise requires time, dedication, deep analysis of the subject. How many of us can claim that we are experts when we talk with confidence about something? Reading and/or hearing about something, does not mean you know it. It means you know some aspects of it, but not others. If we knew how little we know, it would be so quiet...

Thankfully, people are self-centered, overconfident, ambitious and flawed in many other ways when it comes to their opinions! That’s why we keep talking and having discussions. 

Yet, it's a good idea to stay humble when expressing a strong opinion. There are many reasons for that, two of them are:
First, you may be embarrassed later, when you learn how little you knew when you spoke, and when you learn that you were wrong;
Second, you may not be able to truly hear other opinions, so you may miss some important insights, which would otherwise contribute to you developing an expertise

If you are someone who enjoys a good conversation and likes expressing opinions, do yourself a favor and next time when you have an interesting conversation among friends, pay attention how readily and with how much convictions you speak vs. how much you truly know about the subject; then pause and resume the discussion. How much the dynamics of the discussion would change? It might be an interesting experiment!



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