Opinions. Everyone’s got ‘em. Many people like to express them in many different ways. Some people like to sing about the way they feel towards others, some people paint, some people protest, and some people stay silent. In this opinionated opinion piece on opinions, I’ll be writing about my thoughts on how I believe opinions should be shared, and counting how many times I say the word opinion. Because it’ll be a lot.

Opinions on their own don’t do any harm. Technically, an opinion is just “a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.” Thank you to the Dictionary for that quote. So, for example, someone could just really hate lettuce (a normal struggle), and not voice their opinions on it. They could choose to skip lettuce at meal time, and stay silent in conversations about the adoration of lettuce. Weird, yes. But not harmful. No one gets hurt or upset. Except, what if the lettuce hater wants to express their opinion on why lettuce is bad? I believe that we should let them. After all, it’s not healthy to stay silent about something that makes you upset. They should get to join in on the conversation with others, and bring their thoughts to the table. Okay, enough about lettuce.

Now, bringing thoughts to the table isn’t inherently bad either. People are very capable of having civil conversations about their thoughts and disagreements without becoming heated and defensive. In fact, I’ve been in many civil conversations such as those. In order to not anger the other person, you have to display your opinions calmly, and with an open mind. Don’t be afraid to change your mind on your opinion. But sometimes, people don’t understand how to present information calmly, or just get too passionate. This can lead to arguments, fights, or even riots.

That brings me to my next point: when opinions shouldn’t be voiced. I believe that everyone has earned a right to have a voice in this world, even if it’s on little things, like the hatred of lettuce. But when you earn something, you also have the chance of getting that privilege taken away. I’m sure all of us teenagers can remember the day we got our first phones. What did our parents say? “Be careful with it. This a privilege that you worked hard to earn, and I will take it away if I need to.” Now, many of us are much older than we were then. We’ve seen what opinions can do to people. They can make people angry. Violent, even. I believe that since you earned the right to voice your opinion, you can also have that opinion that you voiced limited, if need be. Of course, I’m not saying that we should go around shushing everyone who disagrees with us. What I’m saying is that, if someone threatens to get violent (or worse, if that’s possible) over an opinion, we should have a right to limit that person’s voice, on that certain opinion. For example, harassing someone on the internet has a good chance of getting you suspended from using social media, yelling in school will probably get you detention. So, for the sake of you, and the safety of others around you, please refrain from getting violent about your beliefs.

Opinions are good for people. They’re what keep us from becoming cookie cutter versions of everyone else in the world. But when you get too passionate about a value, things turn bad quickly. So basically, the moral of the story is: play nice. As we’ve all heard many many times. Let’s take it to heart, shall we?

Oh, remember how I mentioned that I was counting how many times I said opinion? I said it 20 times.

And that’s not an opinion.

21.