Blog 3674 – 11.26.2025
The Slightly Skewed View
I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist nor a Devil’s Advocate really and still I often find myself if not defending at least representing a slightly skewed view. Yesterday, a longtime conservative friend commented on my Facebook timeline that he read my blog every day. I feel quite honored and a bit surprised for I am certain that my skewed view must often conflict with his own opinions and long held beliefs.
In high school over fifty years ago I took two years of Journalism. In the first year in addition to our studies in Journalism we served as reporters on our monthly high school newspaper, the Central High Digest. We got to experience first hand the experience of putting out a small newspaper. In our second year several of us were promoted from reporters to editors and as co-editorial editor of page two, I had a monthly column with a by-line named “In My Opinion.” When I began this blog ten and a half years ago years ago in many ways it was a continuation of my old monthly editorial column.
In the early nineties seventies after completing three years in the U.S. Army, eleven months of which I spent in South Vietnam, I attended a Bible College for three years where I took courses designed to help me become a preacher of the Christian gospel. During my brief career I served as a Junior Church Pastor, Associate Pastor, Youth Director, Evangelist, and as guest speaker at a couple of small churches.
I share a little of my resume to show that I have had more than a few opportunities to express my opinions to others. My opinions and beliefs have changed over the years. Unlike some of my contemporaries, I do not consider it heresy to discard beliefs that are no longer serving me and I think changing one’s mind is not just a woman’s prerogative but everyone’s. Every time we learn something new we change our minds and if we have not changed our mind recently that means that it is perhaps time to consider a new perspective.
Beliefs they say are harder to change than opinions, but I think beliefs are only strongly held opinions and that we should ever be scrutinizing our opinions and beliefs to see if they are still serving us. I think one of the best ways to do that is to practice looking at everything with a slightly skewed view. Often things look quite different from even a slightly different vantage point.
There is a famous quote often wrongly attributed to Albert Einstein that says insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. It actually was first used in a Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet in 1981 and later in a 1983 novel, Sudden Death, by Rita Mae Brown, the actual quote being, “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”
If your opinions and beliefs are working for you, if you are happy with them, by all means hold on to them. But if not, try looking at things from a different point of view. One more quote about perspective, “Often we listen to answer. Not to understand.”
We do not have to always agree, but we owe it to ourselves and to others to try to see things from different points of view. Thank you for taking the time to read http://www.theencouragingword.co I hope you found an encouraging word today.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
Gene Autry – Home Home On The Range
theencouragingword 