I could see it in his eyes.
I almost instantly regretted saying the words that had exited my mouth only moments before.
It was one of those moments, not restricted solely to men but certainly more prevalent, where you feel the need to express opinion on… anything just to fill the silence.
“It’s a hairline fissure in the copper pipe probably caused by age, I’m guessing.”
I was right but that was immaterial.
My opinion on plumbing to a plumber carries the same weight as my opinion on electrical work to an electrician… light.
Social Media, and current media in general in its race for clicks, has made us feel that every opinion matters.
It does not.
Sometimes you need to accept the fact that the person giving you an opinion is giving it to you with no expertise, no training, and no experience beyond their own.
That’s fine if they are telling you how they feel.
That’s great even.
However, their opinion is not necessarily fact or scalable or worth taking action from or even repeating.
You see this in social media and even in the news all the time.
”People are up in arms about…”
No, ‘people’ aren’t.
Three people are.
Or thirty, or three hundred, or three thousand.
But ‘people’ are not.
I’m by no means suggesting that we ignore terrible things/opinions/actions, however I am saying we don’t need to assume everyone is doing something, feeling a certain way, or even experiencing things the same way just because a handful of people did something or said something.
I saw on the news today while I was on the treadmill working on my Adonis (if Adonis really enjoyed a few pints)-like physique that a few dozen people in Italy gave the Nazi salute at an event marking Mussolini’s execution date.
This is, obviously, deplorable.
However, those people are not representative of all people, nor even Italians.
They are, however, representative of all morons.
Morons do moronic things.
Those people are morons.
Again, this isn’t to say we can just ignore things.
We just need to stop thinking every opinion on anything is representative of public sentiment writ large.
Deep breaths.
It usually isn’t.
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As my dear old mother used to say “Consider the source” . Too few folks stop and wonder where their information is coming from for sure.
See? Common Sense Journalism.