A Word to the Opinionated

I know my latest posts really haven't had anything to do with writing--and considering that I'm actually doing some writing lately, that might seem odd...except of course for the more preoccupying force of *making life* that's been taking up my energy lately. Okay, I'm totally not getting to any sort of point.

If I were to make a point today it would be to talk about people's needs to assert their opinion/knowledge/experience on other people. Maybe assert isn't strong enough a word. How about shove/force/impose.

Let's take a hypothetical. Say I have a really bad headache--the kind that comes close to being a migraine and forces me to lie down in my bedroom with the lights off to breathe through the pain. And say that for personal reasons, for health reasons, I prefer not to take any pain-killers. And let's say a friend...no, an acquaintance... happens to call me and I mention that I can't talk right now because I have this terrible headache. Now let's say this person suggests I take said painkillers, and I say No thank you, I've found that if I just lie down for a few hours, it will go away. And this person says, Why would you suffer for three hours when you could just take something now and it would go away? That's just crazy!

Let me tell you how few people accept the idea that I just prefer to tolerate the pain and find alternative methods for dealing with it. And let me tell you how tired I am of being told how I SHOULD feel; what I SHOULD do when it comes to pain that is natural and even necessary.

Any savvy reader here who's been following my latest blog entries is going to figure out what I'm really writing about, and maybe if I find some courage to face the inevitable onslaught of responses that I'm likely to get, I'll come out and talk about it directly.

But for now, I just want to say, it's very easy to fall into the habit of offering what you think is just your experience, but is really your biased opinion phrased in such a way as to make others feel judged. And to that I say: take your opinion and shove it (down someone else's throat).

JPR