I shared on my Instagram stories a week or two ago that I don’t like to share my opinions before I have time to gather information.
I don’t want to have a knee-jerk reaction to an incendiary headline designed to get people mad enough to click.
Also, I don’t like to use one source. All sources have agendas and biases. Perhaps it’s a throwback to wanting to be a journalist, or maybe it was all those papers I had to write with reputable sources. Either way, I rarely rely on one source for my information.
Because I like to do a bit of (and by a bit, it can be a long dive down a rabbit hole) research, it sometimes (often) takes me a minute to gather enough information to form an opinion, which I could still change my mind about depending on new things I learn.
And typically, by the time I have an opinion I feel strongly enough about to share, the world has moved on, and sharing it feels irrelevant.
Sharing opinions is scary because it opens you up to criticism, which often is not constructive and is really just hurtful, so the fact that the world moved on to the next thing is a relief. It means I don’t have to share my opinion now.
But we’re supposed to niche
But more and more, I want to share them anyway. Use my voice even if it is delayed. Even if I live in a world where I am supposed to niche and only talk about one or two related things.
I am interested in so many things. And have opinions on many of them. I’ve often said I am interested in too many things.
But it is really being interested in one thing disguised as many things. I am interested in the human condition and its connection to the world around us. We don’t live in a vacuum. Everything is connected.
It also makes me a better writer because I can draw on many areas for thoughtful interrogation and connections.
One of our problems is that we try to be too niche, siloing ourselves from other things with the idea of becoming an expert. This way of looking at the world severely limits possibilities and hinders growth.
We put band-aids on problems that could be reimagined if we expanded our views and connected with others outside our self-imposed silos.
We put ourselves in these boxes because “they” tell us that is the best path to success. But who’s success? Who has the most to gain from our silos? And who loses?