If you ever want to start a discussion, a very lively discussion; all one needs to do is to enter a popular FB page or a popular blog and start off a comment with your opinion in the following way: “As a lifelong Republican I feel that Obama……” or “As a lifelong Democrat I can tell you that Fox news is……”
And Watch.
Bang!
The page will explode with a huge amount of comments defending and counter-suggesting the writings into a million different directions.
Being in the diabetes community, we too have a few subjects that people are passionate about. Try stating a particular opinion on any subject from alert dogs, to pump vs. injections, to the artificial pancreas, to research, and whether one should wake up in the middle of the night to check a blood sugar and you will witness an enormous amount of opinions on the subjects being discussed.
I always believed that this is a good thing.
I have always entered a discussion as if I know nothing. Try it sometime. I do that because if my goal is to change someone’s mind, I have learned, I’m ‘dead-in-the-water’. But if my goals are to learn what the other person’s thoughts are and why they are important; I will find that out.
The definition of ‘opinion’ in Yahoo search is stated as:
1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof.
2. A judgment based on special knowledge and given by an expert.I laughed when I looked up the meaning because even the two meanings did not seem like they agreed. So whether a novice or an expert, one can have an opinion? Opinions are an open book, and so is the action taken by the one hearing it how it is accepted.
I find it so incredibly informative to listen, or to read, what others think. I learn much. In fact, I learn a lot. I also, from time to time, am amused as well at both what I observe but also in my own thoughts. “What was I thinking?” Is a very popular phrase I ask myself when I learn something new reading someone’s opinion.
Many of you may, or may not, have been around when new technologies, which are now in everyday use, came into being. I learned two things during those days (which, in actuality, still happen today) of pumps, new insulins, and meters; all with incredible technologies. One; by listening to other people’s opinions I learned what would be right for us. Two; when something is in development there is a process to move the device to everyday use. Advancement in management tools, and even research, is a process. The way something first appears changes in its move to everyday use. And this can surely take time (the first pumps were the size of a spaceperson’s back pack).
I will continue to listen and I will continue to read opinions because I find people’s thirst for knowledge is a miraculous thing and truly in the diabetes community the thirst for knowledge, and the sharing of that knowledge, is second to none.
But that is just my opinion.
I am a diabetes dad.
Please visit my Diabetes Dad FB Page and hit ‘like’.