I remember the first time someone referred to me as “opinionated.” While not categorically negative, the trait is hardly complimentary, and being called such startled me, partly because I didn’t think of myself that way but also because I was caught off guard. Not only did I not count “opinionated” among my characteristics, but I also considered myself aware of my strengths and limitations. Neither of these self-assessments was quite as true as I had imagined.
Had the comment been made by someone I didn’t know well or hold in high esteem, I likely would have ignored it. But as it happened, it was bestowed by my cousin Kevin, whom I adore and have known my whole life. He did it so noncritically, throwing the comment casually in the middle of a warm conversation, that I couldn’t dismiss it.
I’m sure Kevin has long since forgotten the moment, but I haven’t. At the risk of sounding totally melodramatic, it shifted the way I think about myself. It made me pay attention to myself in a new way. Like when you finally bother to look up a word in the dictionary, and then the word seems to pop up everywhere, I felt as if I had donned a personal alarm system that blared anytime my opinionated nature reared its head. It happened more often than I would like to admit.
This went on for about a decade, until a year ago, when I had another lightbulb moment.
My husband, Caleb, and I were out for a walk, debating the pros and cons of various family schedules. He and I tag-team child care and breadwinning, and we had decided to shift our respective hours in the office so his days overlapped more consistently with those of his boss. For me, this meant that I would now spend different days in the office. As far as my client schedule was concerned, it didn’t really matter which days—and yet I kept feeling I needed to develop an opinion on the matter. I belabored making a decision until finally, one afternoon while pushing the double stroller, I had this thought: I don’t need to have an opinion. I can just tell Caleb I’m flexible and open, and he and his boss can determine his schedule.
For me, this realization lifted a mental burden. I’m sure it also simplified Caleb’s life. This invites the question: Why—in this instance particularly, though more generally as well—did I feel I needed to take a stance on something that didn’t actually matter to me? I’m not talking here about voicing real preferences (for example, if I would rather have BLTs for dinner than pasta, I’m going to say so); I’m talking about needing to have an opinion about something inconsequential to me.
This tendency of mine is, well, kind of nuts. Our life—two working parents, three young children, minimal outside-the-home child care, a house, a yard, a close circle of friends, a community we care about, and obligations at church and within our extended families—is chaotic enough without me adding any extra considerations. I don’t need to have an opinion on everything. Not only do I not need to, but also my faith supports a more laid-back attitude when it comes to my opinions and decisions. As the Message version of the Bible says, when you let go of your demands on life, a “sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down” (Phil. 4:6–7).
In New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton writes:
To the truly humble man, the ordinary ways and habits and customs of men are not a matter for conflict. The saints do not get excited about the things that people eat and drink, wear on their bodies, or hang on the walls of their houses. To make conformity or nonconformity with others in these accidents a matter of life and death is to fill your interior life with confusion and noise.
I can tell you one thing: If Merton had been dealing with toddlers, he wouldn’t have limited the cacophony to interior life. The amount of exterior as well as interior clamor my opinions create is staggering. For instance, sometimes I get it in my head that pajamas should be seasonally appropriate. You know, thin, sleeveless nighties in the summer and long-john sets in the winter. I’ve had power struggles with my young children on this matter, ones that have ended in screaming and tears—and to what end? It truly doesn’t matter what my children wear to bed. If they’re cold, they’ll get under the covers. If they’re hot, they’ll strip down. This, to use Merton’s phrasing, is not a matter of life and death.
Now, I know children’s pajamas are not what Merton was talking about when he said the saints “do not get excited about the things that people wear on their bodies”—and yet I can apply this insight to my own life. If I make bedtime clothing a big deal, my family’s varying opinions on the matter are much more likely to disrupt the peace, harmony, and goodwill in our home, triggering my children’s anger as well as mine. This is both disruptive and unnecessary. Not only do I not need to have an opinion on everything; it is better when I don’t.
Recently, at Mass, I was struck by a line from the day’s first reading when Moses says to the Israelites, “In your observance of the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin upon you, you shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it.” I’ve always known we should keep all the commandments, but I never really thought about the fact that we shouldn’t overcomplicate life by adding commandments.
Turning my preferences into regulations and my tastes into expectations is both silly and, too often, harmful. My opinions make life harder for my husband, my children, and really anyone on the receiving end of them. What’s more, having too many opinions stunts me spiritually. It keeps my focus on myself—my wants, my preferences— rather than on my neighbor’s or God’s needs and perspectives.
“Just because I could care about something doesn’t mean I have to make myself care about it.”
Being opinionated is a part of my nature, something my cousin realized long before I did. While I’ll probably never be completely laid-back, from a faith perspective and for the peace of everyone around me, I now try to relax my preferences, judgments, and viewpoints. Just because I could care about something doesn’t mean I have to make myself care about it. Just because I think something doesn’t mean I have to say it.
It takes discipline to curb my expressions of expectation and my petitions of preference—but doesn’t most growth? For the sake of my neighbors, for the sake of my family, and for the sake of my own spiritual well-being, I’ll temper my opinionated nature. (Except when I have to choose between pasta and a BLT. In that case, I’ll always go to bat for bacon!)
This article also appears in the February 2025 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 90, No. 2, pages 43-44). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Image: iStock
Add comment