MORNING VIEW FROM THE RIDGE:
The Only Seat in the House
There was an old fellow who practically lived on a stool near the front of the store when I was a kid.
Every morning he’d walk in with a cup of coffee, settle into the same spot, and begin solving the world’s problems. He knew how every business should be run, how every salesman should sell, and why every manager was doing it wrong. Didn’t matter if the subject was televisions, washing machines, Vietnam, Detroit, or the weather. He’d hold court for hours. The funny part was he wasn’t buying anything and hadn’t worked retail a day in his life. But if confidence were commission, he’d have been the highest-paid salesman in the county.
The older I get, the more I realize that fellow never really disappeared. He just multiplied.
Today he’s on television. He’s on social media. He’s sitting behind a podcast microphone. He’s writing columns, hosting panels, running focus groups, and explaining to complete strangers how they should live their lives.
Everywhere you look, somebody has appointed themselves the expert on your family, your values, your faith, your work ethic, and your future.
What fascinates me is how many of these experts have spent very little time living the realities they’re so eager to lecture everyone else about. They’ve mastered theories, titles, credentials, and talking points, but somehow missed the lessons that come from working long days, paying real bills, raising a family, keeping promises, and living with the consequences of your own decisions.
For years we’ve been conditioned to believe that every opinion carries the same weight. It doesn’t. Maybe that’s the real difference between noise and wisdom. Not everyone deserves equal authority on every subject.
If you’ve been married to the same person you fell in love with more than fifty years ago, your opinion on marriage means something.
If you’ve spent forty years building a business and personally managed thousands of employees, your opinion on business means something.
If you’ve raised children and every one of them grew into productive, responsible adults who contribute to society rather than take from it, your opinion on raising children means something.
If you’ve worked a trade, run a farm, managed employees, served customers, survived hard times, or carried responsibility on your shoulders, you’ve earned perspectives that can’t be taught in a seminar or downloaded from a screen.
Experience doesn’t make someone infallible, but it does give weight to their words. The problem today isn’t that too many people have opinions. It’s that too many people believe every opinion carries the same value regardless of what stands behind it.
The truth is, I’ve reached a point where I don’t need a committee in Washington, a consultant in New York, or an algorithm on a smartphone to tell me what constitutes common sense. I don't need permission to trust my own eyes, my own experience, or my own judgment.
In fact, I’ve adopted a simple philosophy that has served me pretty well:
“I am the world’s leading authority on my opinion.”
Nobody else’s.
Just mine.
That doesn’t mean I’m always right. It doesn’t mean I know everything. It simply means I’ve spent nearly seventy years gathering the evidence that shaped my view of the world, and I’m comfortable standing on it.
GOD gave each of us a mind to think, a conscience to guide us, and enough life experience to recognize when something doesn’t add up. We should probably spend less time trying to control what everyone else thinks and more time making sure our own thinking is worth listening to.
The self-appointed experts can keep talking.
I’ll stand on the evidence of my own life.
J.T. ~ Voice of Reason