Opinions are like………

I know what you are thinking, being raised in Oklahoma all my life we have so many sayings. My father had many of these sayings. I guess over the years it sort of became our culture and somehow a way of life? I remember as a kid my parents would say, “If you sit that close to the T.V. you’re going to go blind!” And who could forget, “If you eat all your vegetables you will grow up big and strong!”  Or when we would lose something it would go like this, “Mom I can’t find my jeans, Well the last time I wore them….”  Growing up in the heartland was really great, there too many ‘sayings’ to even remember. Everything was hotter than, colder than, dryer than, wetter etc. You know like the classic, “Wow it’s windier than a wagon load of you know whats, and better hang on to your wig!” How about, “It’s hotter than a three dollar Rolex out there!”

I will never forget the classics, “Shut the door, window, pneumonia hatch, I can’t afford to heat the whole neighborhood!” Yes these were simpler times for simpler people. I suppose those days may be long and gone, but they have been engrained into my conscienceness. I mean I still to this day some thirty years of being on my own, go around turning off the lights, like I’m saving the planet! I unplug unused appliances, and my job around here is turning off everything from tv’s, computers, music players, etc. It’s time-consuming and exhausting. I still argue with the boys on how long a shower is sufficient! I mean I even timed how long it takes to fill the tub (like a bath level). FYI: it’s fifteen minutes! So there is some hard science for you parents. Fifteen minutes in the shower equals a bath, therefore it’s unlawful to go beyond. LOL I even went so far as to measure our electricity that each appliance uses!

I wanted to know if the old saying of my parents was true, “Don’t stand there in front of the refrigerator, it cost 25 cents every time you open it!” FYI: we didn’t call them refrigerators back then, they were called Ice Boxes. Turns out I almost calculated my kw and gigawatt power rate with the compressor ratio, and light bulb from the fridge usage crunched the numbers…and ……oh who am I kidding I’m not that smart. So consequently my boys get the same speech I did some 40 years ago. I figured if I never forgot then they wouldn’t either. “If you just open the refrigerator, then that’s 25 cents!” FACT! LOL

There is another quandary I’m having a hard time with, this using the dryer at full strength to ‘FLUFF’ shirts and what not! Don’t get me started here, because I can assure you my mother, God rest her soul, would totally come unglued here. I mean we grew up and for Christmas you got two new pairs of jeans, three shirts (flannel) socks and underwear. You didn’t get to pick them out either, and you dang sure wasn’t going to get anymore until next Christmas. You could of course purchase your own with your own earnings, of a JOB THAT you HAD TO HAVE! Oh yeah I forgot, one pair of dress shoes a year, but only purchased if you had a date to a dance. the other shoes were from basketball.

Sorry I digress, but my mother would have flipped her lid if she would have heard the dryer running with ONE FLIPPIN SHIRT IN IT! Not only that but I’m talking 20 minutes here at my house. The boys are my only children, never had girls, thank God Almighty! You better believe I’m on dryer patrol here. And that 25 cent speech my parents gave me as a child has now gone up to 5.00! That’s right folks, again I did the time, gas cu price per unit, add the electric motor usage per second, times my own personal frustration! Who am I kidding it’s 5.00 believe me! If you dry one stupid shirt for 20 min, at my house it’s 5.00! I’m going to tell you about, and show you the figures. LOL

A couple of years ago I was totally freaked out by our expenses. So at about 3:00 am one morning I stayed up all day doing research on my appliances, how much energy they used. How much my current price per unit of electric and gas was, made a chart and set the boys down and gave my speech!

Here is what I discovered? Boys taking their clothes out of the laundry and folding them so they wouldn’t be wrinkled later or need the ‘dryer trick’? Heck no you know what happened! The new dryers have this new handy ‘FLUFF’ Cycle that is for all of the failed parents like me to feel better about their lives. They say it uses less energy than the old school way of full blast heat for 20 minutes. But really who are we kidding, the drum is still turning for 20 minutes and there is still heat involved and burning of gas. The thing these dryers sold was peace of mind, not so much efficiency. If it was about efficiency and saving the planet we would hang out our clothes, and or have our kids fold them and hang them up so they wont wrinkle! I’m going out on a limb and say if you have investments in Iron companies better pull out your money! I’m envisioning a generation that has no idea on earth what that is for!

So what have I learned. The boys still leave lights on, stand in front of the fridge (Ice Box) and stare at it like a monkey doing a math problem! (Another Okie saying sorry had to put it in there) It’s funny we stare at the fridge like something magical has happened, like the food fairy came! And placed delightful goodies in there we don’t know anything about. Well I take that back our boys NEVER know what’s in the fridge because they don’t shop, carry in, or put away; just eat. Our boys still, god forbid, dry their 3.00 dollar t-shirts that they paid 60.00 for, in my dryer for 20 minutes that is a minimum of 5.00! I still wake up in the morning and pull it out of the dryer, shake it real hard, to get out the wrinkles, turn off the dryer and lay it on the ironing board by the iron, hoping there will be an epiphany. Up to this point not so much! I mean after all my parents walked 5 miles up hill each way in the snow to school! It’s the least I can to teach them.

All of these sayings are not much more than opinions. These can become engrained in our being and over time we take them as truth! I mean it is a known fact that if you leave a light on you will use energy. But the actual amount of the cost of the energy for that one light bulb is a bit trickier to realize. I can tell you it is way more expensive to the one paying the bill!

World English Dictionary

opinion  (əˈpɪnjən)
— n
1.	judgment or belief not founded on certainty or proof
2.	the prevailing or popular feeling or view: public opinion
3.	evaluation, impression, or estimation of the value or worth of a person or thing
4.	an evaluation or judgment given by an expert: a medical opinion
5.	the advice given by a barrister or counsel on a case submitted to him or her for a view on the legal points involved
6.	a matter of opinion  a point open to question
7.	be of the opinion that  to believe that

There are many kinds of opinions. Educated, and my favorite, in my most humble opinion. My Father always said opinions were like (elbows) everyone has a couple. And you know what he was telling the truth. It’s how you process those opinions is the problem. I have shown you prior that opinions executed over time will become facts! I can guarantee you, I may be dead and gone, but I can hear my sons telling their children, “Every time you open the fridge, it cost me 25 cents!” What a happy day that will be, to know they are not sleeping because they are up turning all of the appliances and gadgets off, just think how many gadgets there will be in 15 years. To that end I say to them YOUR WELCOME!

The carnal mind tends to take opinion as fact. If we stay with that opinion for a long while slowly but surely it becomes the god’s honest truth! I don’t have a problem with people’s opinions, it is the foundation for our democracy, and a healthy society. The problem is your  truth, are loosely based facts (not checked out thoroughly) that your Ego mistakes it as truth,  but is merely your opinion or preference. Preference always leads to prejudice and division. I often wonder how many things are seen or heard on our favorite news channel influences our opinion. Many times each storyline builds a strong opinion which becomes and engrained truth. It reminds me of one of my sons, if they saw it on the internet it automatically the gospel truth! Zombies, UFO’s, Conspiracies you name it….it there is a YouTube video on the subject with some raw footage, and a couple of facts, throw in an eyewitness and there’s your truth.

The carnal mind and Ego takes everything so personally! It gets very discouraging sometimes living in this space with others. I mean they are allowed to have opinions, and voices, but somehow theirs is the gospel truth and mine is fleshly, and carnal, and immoral. I can tell when the Ego is a work because here is the REAL TRUTH> It needs no defense from you, it can stand on its own. The Ego gets involved and then someone’s emotions, then comes defensiveness, and ultimately aggressiveness. Honestly let’s be real. We are not defending the truth, it doesn’t need our help. I tell people all the time whether or not you belive in God or how He feels towards you, won’t change how He feels towards you and or who He is. What I’m afraid we are doing is defending our feeling of rightness and opinion more than the truth itself.

St. Paul says ..”We can do nothing against the truth, but only FOR the truth.”  If Allah was the truth, and wanted to kill infidels then let him do it. I feel it’s fighting and defending a mind-set with emotional attachment to a belief system. I think it really strange that many Americans today are so against the Muslim way of life without doing their own diligence. I am sure that they mean extremism of the faction of that faith. But we lump it all into Muslims. Honestly we all have fears of what we don’t understand. But it’s not that much different from when I was a little boy in the 60’s and they said the same thing about the african americans rising up. Same fears, different time.

I want everyone on the planet to have an opinion it is the only way to discover the path of life and truth. What I plead with people is to quit calling opinion fact. I hear preachers all the time saying, God’s Word says, my thoughts are you mean, My OPINION of what I think it says. The scriptures must be interpreted in the spirit, through the mind of Christ. It was a mystical religion from the east. You can not interpret this Eastern Mystery with a logical Western mindset. If you do then you get everyone going to hell but 144,000 people, and the book of revelations becoming about the end times, and Easter Bunnies on Pascha (Easter / Resurrection) Holy Day! In the early church you weren’t handed a bible the day you were born-again and said read it and figure out this indescriblable, unknowing, mystical, invisible God Almighty. It was a three year process to be mentored in the faith.

All I’m saying is have your opinion, believe your facts, live your truth. But you better make sure it didn’t come from your past. I think it was past down, because still to this day I will tell you the TRUTH> Every time you open the Ice Box it cost you .25 – YOUR WELCOME!