options and opinions

Sarah, anybody can be a Sarah, said this—“Our limited human perspective and the condition of our body, with its mercurial variations, distorts our evaluations.” Now that is a deep philosophical opinion, but I agree with it, that’s my opinion! You have the option to agree or not! Pop! Goes the weasel!

Right now the United States spends about a trillion dollars a year on its military, followed by China with more than 300 billion, then Russia with 150 billion. That amount of money produces a lot of options and opinions!

I like options! I guess we all have options but maybe of different degrees and of different types. And maybe some folks have more options than others, but we all have options I think. I guess options are sorta kinda choices, at least they are related, maybe. BUT as a friend thinks—When the Bonger bongs, there are no more options! Saturday question—Is that fair! The only thing that's fair is the Butler County Fair and that's in June! Another one of his statements is--Life is like playing Monopoly, when the game is over, it all goes back in the box!

Sooo how do we determine our point of view a.k.a. opinion? Is it our genetics or environment or both? Maybe it’s determined by which family we are part of, or what country we were born into or which part of the U.S. we were raised in, maybe. Maybe by our education, the folks we are around, what we read, what news we listen to, experiences, who we marry, who are parents are/were, what kind of job we have, what kind of lifestyle we choose, how much money we have, if we are believers or not, if we are bipolar, or depressed or develop a physical problem, etc. Sooo then what gives us options?

Poof moments! Now think of this, what stuff causes us to change our viewpoints and our options that we can’t control. They might be death, stroke, dementia, cancer, inherit a large amount of money, divorce, have a certain ability that is outstanding, a family problem, a major change in our culture, a financial loss, a lifestyle, have an accident or get a bad disease, have a conversion, have something really good just fall in our lap, marry a person, get a bad knee, have children, etc. Now all those can change our life, our opinion and our options real fast; we have no choice, they just do. One day we are a certain way and next day we are way different. We act and see things differently. Our options and opinions immediately change without choice. There will undoubtedly be "poof! moments" when change surprises us and we need to adjust, we have toooo, we have no choice. ItchieBitchie says--And that can happen at the speed of light which is 186,282 miles per second!

It didn’t snow in Yakima last winter and it usually gets snow. Our drive wasn’t cleaned once. All the folks who made money cleaning the parking lots of snow had no income. They had no control of that. A friend owned a gas station for years and worked very hard for years. He planned on selling his business when retiring and using the money for just that. Guess what, it was unsalable because of culture change when he retired. He had no control of that. Flipthepancake! Some IA farmers bought land for $2,000 per acre and in 40 years it’s worth $20,000 an acre. It just happened. JoeBlow says—If I would have known I was going to live to 95, I would have saved more, but I was planning only to live to 72! That was bad planning! Besides, I never thought the average price for a new car would be $50,000. My options are changing!

Sometimes our opinions are proven wrong and we have to accept we are wrong and move forward no matter how bad we don’t like to admit it and still want it the same as it was. We even need to adapt to change if we like it or not (e.g. technology and the many related changes). We say that it will never work and it does. Go to the moon, that’s crazy! Fight a war with drones, come on that will never happen. Those changes change our options probably.

I think about the Bible characters such as Peter who believed in Jesus but thought Jesus was the savior/king who would save the Jews from the Romans, an earthy savior/king. And probably make the Israelites the most powerful in the world. That was his opinion and viewpoint. Then Jesus told him he was wrong, he was a Savior/King that would save him and the world from our sins and give us life forever and forever (i.e. His kingdom was not of this world). Peter didn’t’ get it until events had to happen for him to understand that. Then bingo! He just plain couldn’t understand it at the time. Maybe we are that way at times. We just don’t get it at the time but…. Something like this can change our opinions and options.

CoachB says—"In 30 seconds using AI we can have the most advanced knowledge about any subject. BUT knowledge does not give us wisdom.” If we had the option of having knowledge or wisdom, which one would we pick? AverageJoe says—erv, I live in the 2026 world, I would rather have the option of money! Money talks to me and I understand it and it's widely accepted! Besides, it's obvious that I like stuff! But, that is just AverageJoe's opinion! Knick-knack paddywhack, give the dog a bone, this old man came rolling home.

Have a FUN day my friends unless you have other plans. (-:

erv

MyDeceasedFriendJean said--It is never easy to admit how foolish we are.