Sometimes you need distance from everyone’s opinions to discover which opinion was actually yours.

Opinions absorbed from the people around you can be indistinguishable from your own, because they arrived gradually and you agreed at the time. Only distance separates them, and distance means an actual gap in contact rather than a mental resolve to think independently.

When you are trying to work out what you believe about something, get some real space from the sources first. Days rather than hours. Then write down your view before checking it against anyone. What survives that process has a much better claim to being yours.