You shouldn’t let others influence your opinion

Why you should start thinking for yourself and how important it is

Kolby Spomer
Staff Writer

Be your own person. Carve your own path. Go your own way. All these cliches are absolutely disgusting and overdone, but they’re over done for a reason. People need to learn to stop caring about what others think, or how others think, and decide something for themselves. 

This message is all the more needed in today’s world. A world where lines and sides are drawn based on the idea of what something represents, not what something actually is.

Most voters, for example, go completely democrat or republican when it comes to voting, without actually seeing what each member wants to accomplish.

Or people will say their favorite artist is someone like Bastille, without actually having heard more than the top 40. Or they will say that the best movie they have ever seen is Infinity War (It’s lit but not even close to cinematic perfection).

All of these practices are the result of laziness or stupidity. It’s the result of people not actually spending energy thinking about things. It’s people forming opinions based on what the consensus view is, or what is the popular thing to do, or what their parents tell them to think.

I get how this whole article comes across. Honestly, I’d want to slap me too. I just think someone has to write articles like this, because people need to be reminded to become themselves and love their differences at a time like this, in a place like this.

College is all about discovering who you are and creating your own ideas, but lately it seems like that isn’t happening. People are still listening and watching and saying all the same things. The majority of people don’t know what their political parties stand for, apart from a few select issues that get press.

The media is to blame too, as they steer and change what the public thinks of things because of how they write and what they cover. 

All of what is written so far, is an opinion. It shouldn’t matter that much to you. The point I’m trying to make is that you should be your own person. You should like what you like because you genuinely like it, not because it’s cool or the trend.

Buy clothes you like, listen to what you like, and do what you like. If all of what you like is also popular, more power to you.

Just make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. And when it comes to voting, I want you to vote for what you think is right, but only when you actually know what is right in your mind.

Don’t just see the blue D next to a candidate and vote for them based on that.

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr.