Sure Your Opinion is Valid, But Mine?

I think everyone, at some point or another, has felt like their opinion doesn’t matter. A normal person’s example of this might be disagreeing with an expert in something. Like your plumber says you need to replace a leaky pipe under your sink but, in your opinion, all you need to do is slap some duct tape on it and it’ll be good as new. 

Maybe you even ask them why they need to replace the pipe, then they bestow their plumbing knowledge on you. 

You, upon hearing this explanation, see the logic in what they say and you conclude the plumber knows best (it cost you an arm and a leg to hire them, after all). Ideally, they didn't completely dismiss your opinion in the process, and everyone's happy! You contentedly accept the final outcome and you move on. Congratulations! You completed a perfectly ordinary scenario! 

However, some people like myself take this to the extreme. Rather than rationally determining the soundness of your opinions on a case-by-case basis, you always default to “no thoughts, head empty.” One fun, ongoing example from my life is this logo I’m designing. 

My client wants something fairly bland with some design elements that I think are juxtaposed. Now, I could be an emotionally intelligent person and find a way to kindly communicate my concerns. However, before I can even get that far, I find myself trying to invalidate my own opinion. Except, unlike in the plumber scenario where it makes some kind of sense, here it doesn’t. 

I’m an artist by trade. This is what I’m going to school to become literally certified in. And yet, I’m trying to use the same “they must know better than I do” excuse. But, rather than just pushing aside these feelings, I want to try and get to the bottom of why I’m like this. I’m no psychologist, but I think my vague psych 101 memories and some soul-searching will be sufficient for our purposes. 

My guess is that it's because I’m scared of being rejected or ridiculed for having an “incorrect” or “less-than” opinion. And honestly, for me, that hits the nail on the head. I plead guilty of caring way too much about what others think of me. I always look for others to legitimize and endorse my thoughts and feelings when I should recognize that those things have inherent value. 

After all, I consider other people's thoughts and feelings valuable, so why not mine? For fear of coming across as selfish or egotistical? Maybe, I'm not entirely sure. But what I am sure of is this is an irrational way of thinking that I can systematically dismantle. That doesn't necessarily make me feel any better, but it at least gives me a logical springboard that I can use as a starting point.

From there, I can address the situation with a level head. Maybe they have more qualifications or experience like in our plumber scenario, fair enough. But even that doesn’t completely invalidate what you have to say. If you’re reading this, I assume you have some degree of reasoning and understanding capability! Guess what the other person has? The exact same thing. 

Now, I'm not saying you can waltz up to a rocket scientist and say, "I think you're doing this whole space travel thing all wrong, let me tell you what I think!" However, you can humbly understand that they have more knowledge of the subject than you and present your thoughts accordingly. Your opinions still have some inherent validity, even if you're not the world's leading expert. 

This is especially relevant to me right now since I just started reviewing video games over at Geeks Under Grace (it was actually Sydney who let me know about the opportunity to fill her spot! Thanks again, girl!). I've loved games ever since I was a kid, and I enjoy them to this day, but I wouldn't call myself an "expert" on them by any means. I'm a casual gamer by definition, so when I compare myself to the other reviewers who eat, sleep and breathe games, I feel pretty inadequate. 

However, I constantly come back to that mindset of "you're just as logical and understanding as these people are, even if you're not as well-acquainted with the medium as them." I'm capable of determining what I thought was good and bad about a game, and that's enough. 

But I don’t want myself and those like me to walk away from this thinking, “ok cool, so I’m just an insecure punk who desperately tries to ignore the facts. I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and start being logical!” Instead, I want to figure out what positive aspects can be extracted from this otherwise toxic mindset. 

- Humility: You’re not full of yourself, nice! Some people could stand to learn a thing or two from you. And just think, would you rather try to gain confidence or have to get knocked down a peg? Exactly.

- Open-mindedness towards and receptiveness of others’ thoughts: If you're coming out of that “everyone’s valid except me” mindset, I bet you’re more willing to genuinely listen to and consider what others have to say. You naturally view everyone else's opinions as more important than your own, which is harmful, but you can eat the grape and spit out the seed, so to speak. You can keep this reverence for the opinions of others while also elevating yours to that same level of importance. 

- Relatability: Like I said from the outset, everyone's felt this way at some point. If you find someone who's in that season of feeling like their thoughts are invalid, you can come alongside them. You can communicate that you understand how they feel and that you two can work together to overcome those feelings. You can almost be accountability partners (for the Christian crowd, you know what I'm talking about), checking in with and encouraging each other throughout the week. As a bonus, you get to practice using the previous two positives while building each other up. It's a win-win!

Ironically, after writing all of that, I'm thinking to myself, "are my thoughts on this topic valid?" And it's that that makes me feel like I'll never be able to fully shake this mindset. Maybe I won't. However, even if that's the case, I can always focus on the positive elements of this way of thinking. I can also find support from those who know how I feel, and I hope this blog has done that for you! Huge thanks to Sydney for having me on and –as I always say over on my blog– that's all I've got for now. I'll write to you later!