Having an opinion

(I've been trying to figure out how to write this without sounding insensitive for the past hour) 

Consider the following scenario: You are at a coffee shop meeting a friend that you haven't met in a long time. You hear a clinking of a bell as your friend walks in. You can't help it but as a doctor you make a quick health assessment. Your friend is overly obese, has symptoms of unhealthy levels of high cholesterol and sugar. You stand up and give a handshake and you order a coffee. The guy orders some cheese fries that was recently added to the menu. As you talk to him you try very subtly to skirt the direction towards his health. He then says "Yeah, I know. The doctor says I have all sorts of health issues. But so far I've never felt the need to exercise, I always feel like such a healthy guy".

There are three options that stand before you. They are:

• A) To continue the conversation acknowledging that he feels that way, thinking to yourself that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and you should make no further judgements.
• B) To continue the conversation acknowledging that he feels that way, thinking to yourself that your friend is clearly in self-denial or in some sort of self-delusion.
• C) To question your friend on his opinions with the implication that he is delusional and needs to go exercise. 

The model answer that I would like to have is A. To these people I have no idea how you do it. 

Many people would pick B. For those who do this you would probably be unable to be close to this person on a personal level as long as you have some sort of stigma on the individual. This stigma will take long to clear, depending on how close you want to be with this individual. In this case you haven't seen the guy in years, so unless you have some circumstance that puts you together I doubt you would have a reason to get to know him. 

C is the most dimwitted, arrogant thing to do and you would be a complete idiot to do this. Of course, this is me. 

Needless to say something similar did happen, and it ended quite badly with arguments and emotions being involved. 

This does make me feel a sense of remorse when I mention it now, but I do hope in the future I can learn to accept it and treat it as a lesson instead. 

In the meantime it has brought up thought about what I say that is unsubstantiated. How often do I tell myself that I'm a clever guy (when clearly I am pretty stupid)? Or say something like "Trump is a pretty dumb guy" (when I don't have any evidence to back that he is either smart or stupid)? After this incident I have told myself that I will not have an opinion on anything that can be backed with evidence (of course things like "I feel happy" are valid... although you could talk about brain chemical composition... etc) but with today's information overload, it's very hard to do so.

So for now I have decided not to have an opinion about anything yet unless I have all the information. But until then, I don't have an opinion about anything.

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis" ~ Dante Aligheri

Cheers,

Matthew Tan