A few months ago I had expressed my opinion to someone and they got very upset. They lashed out at me, and said that the only reason I felt the way I did, was because I had just been through a painful experience.
What I find interesting, is that because this person believed this...they easily and quickly dismissed my words. I find this interesting because isn’t that what life is? We have experiences and we learn from them, we grow from them, we are changed from them. I am not the same woman I was 2 or 3 years ago. That’s what happens with life...we change, we expand our frame of reference with each new experience. We change our perceptions with each new revelation or insight.
When someone goes through a crisis, or a trauma...how can we expect them to be the person they were before? The person they were before, never had that trauma in their repertoire, so the very basic way this person saw the world, was very different. When someone looses their parents, they now see the world from the perspective of a parent-less child. When someone goes through a divorce, they now see the world from the perspective of a divorcee. I believe that to dismiss someone’s opinions because they were formed or enforced by personal experience, is not only foolish, but ignorant.
Where else do opinions come from?! They come from experience, from education, from learning, from others. They are the end-product of our experiences, feelings and beliefs. Our opinions can bend and flex as our lives go on; as we learn new things, and are exposed to different realities.
If I had gone through my trauma, my experience, without having taken away new lessons or insights...that would have been very wasteful. You don’t go through what I went through, and not have some changes of opinions and perspectives.
We all see the world through glasses that are tinted by our experiences. Try not to dismiss another's opinion, just because your experiences don't allow for the same perspective.
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