I’ve spent a lot of my life wanting…needing to be right. It didn’t matter what it was…I had to be the one who had the correct argument and it didn’t matter what it cost me to get there. And even as I write this I have to admit that I still struggle with it more than I’d like to.
No doubt being right has its advantages. It is good to make sure we are living our lives by a standard of truth and operating within reality. And I’m not suggesting we should abandon all striving and just accept a low standard for ourselves. But I’ve had to learn (and I’m still learning) how to set and achieve high standards while at the same time ensuring those standards don’t come at the expense of people…neighbors, friends, acquaintances, co-workers…spouse.
Yesterday I was reminded of how I no doubt look when I fail in this area. I will keep the details vague because the person who showed this to me no doubt did enough damage to his own character. I don’t need to add to it. So to make a fairly complicated story as short as possible, an opponent in a competitive but friendly (rec league) game was right about a call, but expressed himself in a rather ugly way about it. When I tried to gain common ground by agreeing with his position but calling attention to his demeanor and language…he simply repeated his position.
Three times in a row, this happened as I tried each time to emphasize more clearly that I believed he was correct. And each time, he was so blinded by his desire to be right, he sincerely believed I was arguing with him about the call. I know this to be true because he told me so when I asked him what I had been telling him.
Can you see where this was going? This man was so keyed in on being “Right.” He couldn’t even hear me agree with him. That’s kind of a scary thought, isn’t it? It’s scary to know that our anger, pride, and desire to be right can so blind us that we fail to see things as they are.
I stopped trying to tell him he was right. It wasn’t something he was ready to hear. This man didn’t strike me as a particularly happy person. He was constantly down on his teammates (family) even though their throws were only slightly off the “money” and they were in a commanding lead. It definitely seemed strange that he would deal with such a simple request so harshly. And as I walked away, all I could think was, “If all we ever want to be is right…we’ll be miserable people.”
When I think about those times when I HAD to be right, I can see that same misery coming through myself. The only thing that brought any joy was being right. I think we know this deep somewhere within ourselves because when we know that’s all we have…all we’ve worked for…we cling to it all the more fiercely.
When I find myself in those times where I feel the need to be right more than to be love…I have to remind myself of this truth in Scripture; “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:8-9, ESV). Better to end an argument in peace than to cling to anger just to be right.
Be a witness,
Nate