Opinions you have about anything are reinforced each time you share them with another person. Possibly because my working hours are spent deep inside an acronym mating ground, the titles I’ve decided on for the concepts responsible are Repetition Influenced Perspective (RIP) and Combative Human Assailed Stock Market (CHASM).

RIP: Leave a prisoner confined to a solitary cell with an automated voice repeatedly telling him through a wall speaker that his name is one it isn’t and, eventually, he’ll break and accept the speaker-spoken name as his own. The timing here is critical; continue to subject him to the same treatment even after he’s accepted his new name and you’ve made a vegetable of him, if he wasn’t one already. A similar thing is happening, albeit in a far less severe manner and, significantly, with control of the wall speaker being delegated to our internal self, when we hear ourselves express how we feel about something.

CHASM: Simply by listening passively, the person you’ve shared your opinions with has invested in your honesty. Each opinion shared is a different stock, and the more you share about how you feel, the more shares of you they necessarily buy. Stretch the metaphor to its limits: if it comes to light that you have lied, the price of the associated stock falls and, like the real markets, can trigger a widespread crash, since the truth of the other opinions you’ve shared is suspect. The more people you talk to = the more investors you have –> the greater the repercussions of a crashed market. No one wants to walk around feeling undervalued. Sorry about the puns, I hate them too, and you can invest in that.