Sunday, April 29, 2007

Indifference of Opinion

Lets say you are talking to someone and they are saying something that you disagree with, like really disagree with. But you dont tell them. You just pretend to agree with them with some non-commital nods of your head and a few unintelligible mumbles. You dont want to face the challenge of presenting your disagreement in a diplomatic way. So you stuff it.

You look at it this way for a minute, “now I know that I dont agree with them on this topic, so I wont bring it up again, lucky me I have the power now.“

The question is are you doing them a disservice by holding back your opinion, which may have the ability, if presented with grace, to affect their opinion?

Depends on the person you are talking to I suppose, their personality and relationship to you. It also depends on you and your personality. I probably stuff more than the average, since I am actually very opinionated but rarely up to the task of really putting it out there. Opinions run through my veins instead of blood. We really must pick our battles carefully though.

We all hate to think that someone is doing this to us, not admitting what they really think and letting us blabber on in error or folly, but they might be.

2 comments:

  1. I have this problem. I work with someone who believes something that I dont.

    and this person has brought up this subject many, many times, and each time it is brought up I find myself deeper in the hole that I have dug and there is no way I could possibly disagree now.

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  2. I just had a recent experience like that too. But I think in my situation, I didn't voice my opinion about the topic because i knew he wasn't going to change his mind or that he could understand my point of view. I guess it was more that my debate skills are not that great and I while I disagreed with him, I couldn't fully get my point across competently. So I didn't.

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