What's your opinion?

Is it safe to say that anything you talk about is by default, "your opinion?"

It has always surprised and amazed me when people preface what they are about to say with "in my humble opinion" or "in my professional opinion." What does that really mean? What are they trying to say? It's not like the preceding or forthcoming information was FACT vs OPINION.

It's ALL OPINION! This is a really hard one to grasp but everything we say is our opinion. It's our perspective, our angle, our point of view. It's based on a series of situations, education, upbringing, influence, family life, experiences, reading, podcasting, scrolling, etc. None of it can be fact because someone else might have run a different study or experiment and it might disprove those facts.

It sounds awful doesn't it, that everything we think and all that we say is our opinion. But it's the truth! You see, it should give us more freedom and less pain to think of it that way. It's our personal TRUTH, our personal fact. At the moment, today.

Think of the people who use to think the world was flat. They believe it to be true. They did not think it was their opinion, to them it was the complete truth and a full fledged fact. But it was disproven sometime between the 3rd and 4th Century BC when someone realized the earth cast a shadow on the moon which became visible when you changed latitude.

Think of a disease and a diagnosis. Your evaluation of what is necessary to cure someone may be completely different than someone else. A purely scientific thinker will be able to tell you what the prescription is for both medicine, rest, health etc while a spiritual person may rely solely on faith and prayer, asking for the miracle for healing. 

It doesn't make one right and the other wrong. These are all opinions, perspectives, angles, decisions, truths. They are also not fixed. That's the best part, we can learn, we can adapt. We can reverse our previous views. 

The direct point is that we don't need to annouce what we are about to say is only our opinion. We already know that. We are all entitled to it, to have it and to savor it or change it. It should allow you calm and peace when you embark in a conversation with someone who does not share the same opinion. Neither one of you has the facts - it's only what you both agree to be a fact, such as who won the game last night. (P.S. - there will always be people who don't believe the technology or swear the player was onsides when the ball was kicked). There are never perfect answers or solutions. Only what we can find today, right now, in the present situation, and in my opinion, you should keep learning and having more opinions!