Right or Happy . . . or Facing Conflict . . . isn't that a Contradiction?
"I've looked at life from both sides nowFrom up and down and still somehowIt's life's illusions . . ."
- Joni Mitchell
As I said in my last post, being willing to disagree, facing conflict squarely and not hiding is a difficult thing to do for most of us. But as Maddie pointed out in a comment from my last post: You have blogged in the past – “Would you rather be right or happy?” This post seems to contradict that. Does it?I don't see the two as being contradictory or exclusive. I have learned to stand up for myself, learned to be willing to disagree, to not just "paper-over the conflicts as I used to in my old ‘peace-maker' days" as Rosalie so aptly put it. But I have also learned that it is sometimes ok to let things go and not push doggedly to be RIGHT above all else, at the expense of harmony in a relationship. I think of that kind of right as the "Ego Right."The idea of being right or happy comes from A Course in Miracles.
The main benefit I see in correctly interpreting "Do you prefer that you be right or happy?" is that it allows the line to be a challenge to our egoic insistence on being right at the expense of real rightness and of our happiness. Stubbornly clinging to a wrong position no matter how much pain it causes us is a virtually universal human phenomenon. This line is both a challenge to us to seriously question our way of seeing things and an invitation to accept a new way of seeing things that is both right and happy.
This also reminds me a bit of The Serenity Prayer -
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
I don't see that as a Christian prayer so much as asking that part of me that is beyond my Ego, to have courage to face conflict, be willing to disagree, but to also accept some things and some people and not try to change them so I can be right. It is subtle sometimes, but not a contradiction in my opinion, just perhaps seeing things from Both Sides Now! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcrEqIpi6sg] Thank you Maddie and Rosalie for taking the time to comment on my last post, it prompted me to think through this and clarify it for myself. Please tell me about how you have learned to balance this subtle difference. And as always thank you for taking the time to visit, I appreciate it.