It's a Human Thing

People want to be right. From the profound to the petty, they want to be right. As a consolation prize if a person can't be right, then at least they want to know that they've been heard.

I've been having some interesting and thought provoking conversations lately. Some with very young children and some with adults many years my senior. It seems that very few share my view of people and relationships. Each one in their own way insisted that I should just assert my "rightness" upon another human without much if any regard for their thoughts, opinions or perspectives.

In my opinion, it's a pity to think and act that way. So much will be lost if we collectively as a human race continue like this. We can't all run around all the time being consumed with being right, whatever the issue.

Yes, I know. There are things that have definite rights and wrongs, like math for instance. I see what you see, 2+2 will always = 4. I get that, and so do you. You also get that that isn't at all what I'm talking about.

When it comes to slippery things like how a person should dress or what they should watch or how they should be educated, we should pause, with our mouths closed. It is after all, the only way to listen. Listening is one of the ways we learn.

We don't always have to learn things we agree with and we don't always have to agree with what we learn.

It is our "right" to try to educate another human on our point of view, but it is also our "right" to see that it is exactly that. Our own point of view that is created by the unique fingerprint that is our own individual life.

Now, I am most willing to listen and learn from those who are kind and receptive to me. I will ask genuine questions and listen attentively, but if you start to play games and try to win me over to your side with verbal trickery, I will tire of the game. No one likes to play Monkey In The Middle for very long. I don't enjoy having circles run around me simply to make me feel undereducated in the hopes that I will give up and switch teams.

I know that I could never "win" people over to my side by brute force, physical, mental, emotional or otherwise. No matter what my "side" is, whether education, politics, Autism, Christianity or anything else. Besides, what a funny concept, to win someone over. A person's mind and how they use it isn't a battlefield, at least not for me.

I can't run around pretending to know what is in a person's innermost thoughts and feelings. I can't pretend to know what's best for anyone but myself. In the lives of the kids I care for, I'm trying to come up with what might be the best for them, but honestly, the flip side of just about any decision might turn out equally fine for them.

I'm sure today this is all about as clear as mud. Well, that's the way it works inside my head. I'm finding myself feeling pretty passionate on this topic these days. And confused, too. What exactly was the topic again? Well, just the idea that you really can't force your ideas on someone else. You just can't be "that right". In the end, we're all going to have to wait for the end to know how right we are or aren't. I think there are certainly ways to share what you think, there are ways to convince another person to examine what you think and ways to convince them to examine what they think, but you can't predetermine the outcome of their thought pattern.

Any which way, you ought to be listening more, thinking more, examining yourself more, and searching out more information. Or at least, I ought to. Certainly I need to be doing those four things way before I open up my mouth and tell you that I'm right and you're wrong!