The Limits of Being Right
What is the point of being right? Do we think it makes us the ‘better’ person, justifies our actions, or gives us the right to take over or make someone wrong? Perhaps we see ourselves as the one that is wrong believing we have somehow failed and the shame and disappointment are too overwhelming to consider?
Wrong and right are part of a dualistic, objective left brain belief system that limits our ability to come together in true collaboration. We see each other as separate and in competition when we see the world through this lens. When we are stuck in wrong and right there is always a winner and always a loser. How do we ever create higher order win/win solutions from this frame of reference? We don’t.
If no one needs to be right, then no one needs to feel like they are wrong. Our entire basis for blame and criticism rests on the idea that the one who is right gets their needs met to feel good about themselves and the situation, and the other does not. The truth is what is right for someone else does not have to be right for us and vice versa. Anything we push against by making it wrong has us focus attention and energy on what we don’t want (to be wrong). And as quantum physics has shown, what we focus on brings more of it into our experience just by nature of us paying attention to it. This is what is meant by the saying ‘what you resist, persists’. Standing on either side of right or wrong automatically has us push against the other side keeping us stuck with both sides of the problem.
We give our power away when we use the framework of wrong and right. It’s time to take our power back for ourselves and let others do the same. When we align with others that we feel are right, we take on the energy of pushing against those that do not align with our ‘group’. When we focus our attention on the wrongness of others, we keep feeding those people and situations with our energy in our efforts to continue to be ‘right’, even when it keeps us stuck and out of action on our own behalf.
What if instead of who is right and who is wrong, we determine what is right for ourselves and allow others to do the same for themselves? What if right and wrong were instead seen as a continuum of choices that everyone can use to decide what works best for them? If at one end of the continuum of parenting, I favor discipline and swift consequences for lies and outbursts, and at the other end of the continuum, my partner favors meditation and hugging, we may be at odds about who is right and wrong in parenting the children. When we instead allow the continuum to help us to decide what is needed for the children and who is best to respond, we honor what is best for us and for the situation without anyone needing to be right or wrong. We begin to value the differences instead of striving for sameness in the pursuit of being right.
How will you honor what is right for you today?