Dear friend,
If you find yourself caught in a fight, or stuck in a conversation that will not move, it is most likely because you are being right.
What is being right? It is the state in which you take your own assessments to be the plain truth, stop listening to the other person, and pour all your attention into defending and proving your position. Being right is listening only to what you already know. Instead of letting the conversation show you what you cannot yet see, you spend your breath proving your points. By design, what you fight for is only what you already have.
And what you already know is a prison of ignorance.
While we are being right, each side clings to its own version of how things should turn out. What goes at risk is the future of the relationship and any chance of a real breakthrough. Care and respect are the first casualties. Being right turns partners into two walls shouting at each other. It stops you from investigating, from listening, from learning the thing you do not yet know. To give it up is to let go of the need to prove your point and dominate the room, and it is the hardest move there is in any relationship.
So why give up being right, especially when you are sure you are? Two things to consider.
First, if you do not, you are likely to lose the relationship. Is that acceptable to you? Is being right worth more than this person? Ask yourself what really matters here, proving your point, or building a space of togetherness, friendship, and mutual respect. Without those, you are a silo, not a network.
Second, do you want to stay locked in your prior knowledge, or to learn something genuinely new? When you reason only from what you already understand, you may feel you are debating brilliantly, but you are debating from the ignorance created by your refusal to consider what the other person might know.
Let us be honest: being right feels wonderful. It comes with a rush of dopamine. And you may win the battle while losing the war. So when an important relationship is at risk, with your spouse, your boss, a peer, a customer, try this almost zen-like move. Go to them and admit that you have not been listening, and that you are now giving up the withholding, the arguing, the proving. Tell them you are done trying to force the outcome or fix the situation. Then do not merely say it; put yourself, as fully as you can, into curiosity, inquiry, care, and listening. Make that move first, and it opens the space for the other person to make it too.
When you listen and learn, you start to see more clearly what matters and what needs doing. Give up being right, stay open and curious, and new possibilities for relationship, joy, and co-invention begin to unfold. Try it, and tell me how it goes.
With care,Saqib