So, how many of you find yourself continuing to argue even after you begin to have doubt about your point being right? How about once we realize we are wrong? Do you still continue to argue because you don’t want to be wrong or do you storm away so you are not shown to be wrong? Why do we do this?
Why do we need to be right? How much more peaceful and how much better would our relationships be if we went in thinking that there does not have to be a right or wrong but that we should both be heard and then look for what makes the most sense to ME afterwords! Why do I have to prove myself right to someone else as long as I got my point across? How much better would it be if we got some great information from both sides of the discussion?
Here is another way to look at it. In Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” he shows a picture of a woman and asks, “What do you see?” A college professor asked the same question to his students. He put the picture on a screen and asked them to say what they saw. Then he let them argue over who was right and who was wrong. You see, half the class saw an older lady and the other half saw a young lady. They argued there point for some time because both groups of students felt they were right, therefore the other people must be wrong. However, the facts showed that they where BOTH right.
But how could that be? If someone is right, doesn’t that automatically make the other wrong? Well, let’s see what the college professor did. He then split out the picture to show both pictures to the students - the young lady and the older lady. Once he did this, all the students could see both pictures in the same frame. You see said the professor - you can both be right. It just depends on how you look at it.
What happens is each of us draws on our experiences and we use these experiences that we have stored to filter the way we see and think. That is one of the things that make us different, no two people have the exact experiences and even if they do have similar experiences they can come away with a different outlook. An example was shown by a graduate student at UCLA who was researching how people from the same type of situations come away with different takes on the experience based on these filters we create and our programming that began when we where young children.
The student interviewed twins who came from an abusive family. She first went to the state penitentiary and spoke with the first sister. The student asked, “What led you to live the type of life that would have you end up in prison?” Her answer was simple, “What do you expect my father beat me.”
Then she spoke to the other sister who was working at a charity that helped abused children and asked the same question. What do you think her answer was? The same exact answer – “What do you expect, my father beat me.”
So the next time you are in a situation where you are about to disagree with someone or get into an argument, maybe, just maybe, you can take a better approach. Maybe you can have a discussion and in the back of your mind remember there are two perspectives and both can be correct. Maybe you can even learn something that previously you would have been closed to when you where your old arguing just to be right self.
Try it and let me know what happens for you.
With Love, Peace and Power,
Ron Dilbert
Single Parent Power, Inc. - “Helping Reconnect Families”
www.SingleParentPower.com
www.blogtalkradio.com/Single-Parent-Power - Every other Wed. at 5:30 PM EST
rdilbert@SingleParentPower.com
516-355-1552
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” - Albert Einstein
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