Opinions

This generation has become completely addicted with social media. Hardly a few minutes pass, and there is the urge to check back our phones to see what we have missed out on. However, what is social media comprised of these days?

Let’s try to understand more about the most common constituent of social media in today’s day and age.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

– Marcus Aurelius , Meditations

I both love and hate social media. I love the fact that it has given me the ability to share my thoughts, occurrences and events in my life with the people I love (or want to make jealous), sometimes minute by minute. Not that I particularly want to do that, but it feels good to have the option.

However, I hate the fact that I have the tendency to spend a lot more time than I would consciously prefer in doing so. There is so much content and from such varied sources that falling prey to “doomscrolling” is as easy as falling off a log.

Consequently, in an attempt to minimise wasted time, I end up not using any form of social media for extended periods, sometimes ranging into weeks. We have talked about the perils of social media in a few of my previous articles, like Solitude, Echo and Context.

Anyway, let’s come back to the subject at hand. The subject of the article is opinions, and I’m sure everyone will agree, in today’s day and age, we are surrounded by opinions across the board. All of news, social media, digital media, television is no longer about informing us with facts, but telling us about someone’s opinions.

Funnily enough, the world is a much more happening place as well, with novelty springing up in every aspect of life, and each piece of novelty invites more and more opinions from people. In a nutshell, this generation is aware that everybody is entitled to their opinions, and we are not afraid to share them anymore.

Additionally, we are more connected with others across the globe, so we get to hear from people living in remote corners of the world talking about how they feel about a major event in a country that is millions of kilo-meters away from them.

Since we are social creatures, imitation truly becomes the sincerest form of flattery. Call it peer pressure or herd mentality and consequently, because we see people not even living close to us having opinions about events in our vicinity, we feel obligated to forming viewpoints about everything in our mental span, and not limit ourselves to things that pertain to us.

However, there is a big catch that we forget about. Human beings have a limited attention span, and the more stuff we retain in our heads, the more our attention gets divided. Consequently, we see that the current generation has the smallest attention span than we have seen in a long time.

The impacts of having an unruly set of opinions are not limited to reduced attention spans. Flowing attention leads to emotional responses, which can cause us to be disturbed, in case we form negative slants towards the issue at hand, despite the fact that the event might not necessarily have anything to do with us.

What is the solution then?

I will share two statements, one from God himself, and one from one of the most powerful men in his time.

It is better to perform one’s own duty, though imperfectly, than to perform another’s duty perfectly.

– Shri Krishna, Bhagwad Gita

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

We can conclude that not having an opinion about everything & limiting yourself to our own business, according to the wise, is a great way to maintain sanity. Not only that, it allows us to focus our attention and energy towards things that are truly in our control.

Simply put

Letting go of opinions on things beyond our influence liberates us to engage with what we can change.

Mind you, I am not suggesting that we all go selfish and only take care of our own best interests. However, having clear definitions of what we can and should focus on would truly provide us clarity to direct our energy more mindfully, and allow us to lead better lives.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂