The Burden of Being Right

I like to be right.  Most people I meet like to be right also.  It may be answering a trivia question correctly, pointing out why a person’s plan won’t work, or correcting someone’s re-telling of a shared activity.  It feels good to be right.  At least this is how I used to feel until I realized that for me to be right meant that someone else may need to wrong.  Worse yet, I was the one making people wrong.

No One Wants to Be Wrong

My self-talk goes crazy with “shoulding” myself when I get something incorrect, but it is even worse when someone points it out to me.  In my experience, there is nothing like “the rock”, “I told you so,” to close down a connection.  The other person may be right, but I don’t see them pointing it out to me as helpful. Could it be that they feel the same way as I do?  Based on the responses I get when declaring I’m right, I would say they feel the same way.  It seems to me that no one wants to be wrong, let alone be told they are wrong.

Would I Rather Be Happy or Right?

When I find myself in a situation where I have a different story than someone else, I toss the line to myself, “Would I rather be happy or right?”  This doesn’t mean that I abandon my stand.  Not one bit!  It means that I am being my stand.  If the person is telling a story about the green chair, but I remember it to be red, does it really matter? If it doesn’t matter to me, the person I’m speaking to or the other listeners, I choose to be silent.  The connection I have created with my listener is more important than being right.

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