Reserving judgment and being open minded do not mean that we need to forgo our very natural tendency to form opinions. That said, I draw a distinction between opinion and judgment. Opinions are what we think based upon available information and experiences. They can be shifted over time based on new information and new experiences. I have changed my mind as I accumulated more knowledge or experience countless times. Opinions should be fluid. We need to have opinions; we need to have hypotheses about our world and our place in it. We need to test those hypotheses based on a steady stream of information and alternate perspectives. What we shouldn’t do is allow those opinions to calcify and harden, especially in light of additional information or new experiences. A judgment then is an inflexible opinion.
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