JUST A REVIEW

How often have you let opinions of others influence your decisions? I am an open-minded person but I mostly do things based on what I think is best.

Ok. What if I changed my question? How often do you read the reviews that other people make online before you read, watch, or make a purchase? What would your answer be? I’m guilty of how much I decide what new food, movies or activities I may try based on the reviews of others. Why should I read a book that has a lot of bad comments? Why go to eat at a place where others did not enjoy? Life is too short.

Yet I wonder how much we are limiting the chances to explore things on our own by filtering things too fast. I was struck at this thought while reading Amazon reviews on some of my new favorite book: “Why We Sleep” by Dr. Matthew Walker. He highlights the importance of sleep in our lives and highlights being sleep deprived is severely hurting not only our health but society in general.

But not all the audience agreed. A small percentage ranked the book 1 star and left bad reviews. These readers, as they say in their comments, wanted a clear practical solution and prescriptive instructions on improving this sleep-deprived situation. Reading this made me chuckle. How often have we marked something down because they did not meet our own expectation?

The author never said his intention was to give practical advice. This reminded me of an important lesson: to never solely rely on some stranger’s opinion when making our decisions when that person does not know what our preferences may be.

I’m glad that I didn’t read these reviews before I finished this book. I still really love this book and would gladly leave a 5 star. That does not mean that you will like it too, but that’s ok.
It’s just a review.