With 7.8 billion people currently on this planet, how many different opinions, values, and standards might be out there as well? While each of us is an individual, completely separate and autonomous from those around us, we are often drawn to those who share the same beliefs as our own. When trying to uphold moral or ethical values, this is important to us. But when it comes simply to opinions, far too often we put the opinion above the relationship. I did not agree with most things my parents thought or did when they were alive, and I now deeply regret that I allowed my opinions, and my need for separation from theirs, to create distance in the relationship. It's the relationships between us that matter the most, not the opinions. If you have someone in your life who matters to you, but you have dissonant opinions on some things, just set those opinions and discussions aside, and nurture the relationship, finding commonalities and connections that help the relationship grow, despite the difference of opinions. Without these important relationships, all we're left with is ourselves and our rhetoric.