Surely you experienced the following situation: Someone makes a statement and in response you present your own view on the matter. That is a typical reaction, and it happens to me again and again. Even though I resolved not to do that. It is simply very tempting to contribute with a personal opinion. Sharing some knowledge. And of course, we are especially proud if our opinion is accepted as the truth.
Is it not right to stand with your opinion and share it? Certainly it is a good thing when we have our own opinion. But the sooner we put our opinion in the center of attention, the less we get to know and learn about other people. Obviously, this topic can also be looked at from at least two different perspectives. We can have a tendency to be talkative, sharing our views, and overhearing relatively little about the people we live with. But we can also tend to listen and share little about us. Depending on wehere we stand we want to move in a different direction. I want to tell less and learn more about the person opposite, and try to overcome my habits to achieve that. Someone else might want to tell more, and no longer withdraw as much into silence. What both side want in the end is a balance.
Now, the title of this article states very clearly not to convince. And there is a reason for that. Why do we want to convince? Maybe we want to sell something, and want to convince for the personal gain that we achieve by doing so. Maybe we believe that the person opposite will be better off with our opinion. Maybe we believe to know best what someone else needs. Maybe we are fully convinced of something and believe that we must fight for the truth or saving the planet (for example). The conviction of knowing what needs to be done can cause a strong desire to try and convince every single person in the world.
What are we doing then? We try to push our opinion onto someone else. If we are not simply doing so for our own profit we usually justify it with superior knowledge and noble intentions. What we usually achieve is rejection. Most people are convinced of their own ideas and skeptical about other opinions. They dislike to be confronted with an attempt to change their mind. Even if someone trusts us and tries to understand, we are likely to achieve very little with persuasive effort alone. Especially, if we fail to explain how and why we have come up with our opinion, and instead argue with the statements of other people who we consider especially competent or trustworthy. Such people are usually experts or publications of institutions that are officially responsible for something. People who have trust in such organizations often have difficulty to understand and accept other people who question them.
Maybe we feel better when we believe that we successfully convinced someone of our opinion. But the only thing we can learn when doing so is how to be more convincing. We learn little about the people we meet. That is a shame, for there is so much to discover. Does the other person simply trust another authority? And if yes, why? Did he or she already have a closer look at the matter? What experiences and insights have resulted in the opinion? What are the intentions, what shall be achieved? What view of humanity is implied in the preferred methods? All this we can ask and find out about. Maybe the person we talk to has never even had to think through this and formulate those things, getting even more benefit from our questions than we get from the answers.