Expectation and Acceptance...

So I was having a chat with a friend of mine about a re-run of the '2011 MTV Movie Awards' that I decided to watch one lazy afternoon. I was expressing my frustration with the award for 'Most Shocking Moment' that was won by a scene from one of the Twilight movies when he said: 'but it's to be expected. You can't get angry about it if you expect it.' This also frustrated me.

The discussion essentially boiled down to identifying the difference between expectation and acceptance. After 45 minutes of explaining these two terms are not synonymous I reached my boiling point, and therefore used the following analogy:

"Basically mate, I'll put this in no uncertain terms. For sake of argument, lets use a scenario where I am aiming to punch you in the face. You see my fist heading towards your face, at an alarming rate; you therefore EXPECT I am going to punch you in the face. From this point you have two choices. You can ACCEPT the reality of me punching you, quite hard, in the face, or you can NOT ACCEPT this and try to duck out of the way, probably unsuccessfully. But can you see now that there is a distinct difference between expectation and acceptance?"

"Well, my brain doesn't work like that."

So, I hear you ask; why in the name of sweet breakfast meats are you telling me this JoN? I am telling you this to highlight the ridiculousness of the 'it's my opinion' end to an argument. That, is pretty much what he said. Using 'It's my opinion' in this case (arguably a matter of fact) is literally just saying 'My point does not stand up under any kind of scrutiny and therefore I will play my societal joker card because, after all everyone is entitled to their opinion.'

Everyone being entitled to their opinion is untrue. But that is another story, for another day.