I Think I'm Afraid of Having Bold Opinions

This morning, I was listening to a fantastic episode of How I Write about comedy writing, and one of the prompts Scott Dikkers (author of How to Write Funny) suggested was to simply jot down 10 opinions, then use those as inspiration for being funny.

Now, I’m absolutely not going to do that to you today. Telling you about a prompt and then doing said prompt is probably the most cringey and least funny thing I could possibly do.

But the reason I bring this up is because his reasoning was that all of us have opinions, thus it’s easy to make a list of ten. My immediate reaction was…well, what if I’m not great at having opinions?

This is a very weird deficiency, I know. It’s just that I struggle with holding super strong opinions about much of anything…unless it’s a general preference, like I believe that black licorice is disgusting or The Parent Trap is a perfect movie.

Sure, I have some moral opinions about how we should treat people—which bleed into my political opinions or parenting opinions—but I generally move through life believing that my opinions aren’t the end-all, be-all of best practices.

Even if I don’t understand another person’s train of thought, I trust that it makes sense to them, so who am I to say they’re wrong? (If it’s not directly hurting someone.) Since each of us has unique experiences that inform our beliefs, then assuming my beliefs are the only right way is awfully small-minded. Beliefs are just a reflection of my unique little life.

For example, someone might have a strong opinion that working from home is better than working in the office…I say, it depends on a lot of factors. Or someone might claim that A.I. will ruin the world…I might lean toward agreeing, but that doesn’t negate the positive possibilities as well.

Here’s the rub…

I’ve always believed that my propensity to see the grey was a positive trait. But recently I’ve begun to wonder if it’s a defense mechanism. Or a people-pleasing mentality.

Am I just afraid of the backlash if I were to dig my heels into a position?

Do I actually hold strong opinions, but I’m too scared to admit them…even to myself?

We can trace my fear of ruffling feathers and the inability to trust myself back to my days in a cult, having grown up in constant fear of being rebuked for my thoughts. Every opinion I held, every desire I expressed, was dissected for traces of pride, selfishness, and “worldliness.” This made me really good at towing the line…offering just enough substance so that I wouldn’t be called out for being “deceitful” while never offering enough to get in trouble.

Even though I’ve been out of that high control environment for nineteen years, old habits die hard. I do believe most things hold a whole lot of nuance, but there are certain fences I’ve confidently landed on one side of. So I’m using this somewhat controlled environment to say some of my opinions out loud, and practice being okay with the fact that some of you may not agree.

We can both believe what we believe and still be okay.

Deep breath. Here we go: