The Cost of Being Right

There are many driving forces that feeds our lack of understanding and because of that, many of us just give up totally on trying to even come close to figuring out what the other person means.  We can’t seem to get it and because we don’t get it, we don’t get them.  Not getting them means you have to rank them somewhere so human beings “catch-all” column for anything or anyone they do not understand is the ignore list.  So why do we do this and how valuable is this list?

We do this because when we talk about values we lie because there are only really two values and no one human being is equipped with both so basically each of us that wear this meat suit will either possess and display one value or another.  The two values are being right and doing right.  Now for many of you, your first thought is that you can have both and there we must agree to disagree.  There is a very huge but single difference between being right and doing right.    You have to have one in order to do the other which may explain why so many people think they are one and the same or that a single individual can possess both.  We will go into more detail about the two values later but right now I think it is important that I explain what I mean when I say, you have to have one before you can demonstrate the other.

It should be easy to understand that you need to be right first before you can do right.  Being right automatically allows you to do right.  If you are correct in your guess about a particular math problem, this allows you to instruct others on the correct manner to achieve that right answer but if you are wrong and you instruct others on your way, then you not only have made a mistake, you have taken several others down that one-way road with you.  In that same vain, doing right simply means accepting that you are wrong and fixing the issue before instructing others on the correct method to reach success.  Doing the right thing means that if you are shown your mistake, you educate yourself on how to fix then make it essential that you contact anyone you may have misled and pass that newly acquired information on while you make it clear that it was your mistake and issue an apology for it.  It may seem like a lot to do but it is critical if your intention is to do right.  Opposite that, you may now be getting a better idea why most people will avoid this route which leads us to the true cost of being right.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell, you first get an idea about something which normally originates from someone you know well, a family members or someone you allow to have influence over you.  This idea quickly morphs into a belief with each and every piece of evidence you hear or learn that proves it to be true.  The more information you receive to prove your idea the stronger the belief becomes.  This belief is only questioned when you encounter someone else with a different interpretation of that same idea and here is your “make it or break it” point.  You can either take the doing right path or you can choose the being right path.  This will not be a hard choice for many but it could be a very hard decision to make for some.  For the many, they clearly demonstrate the being right gene and for those struggling they clearly have the doing right gene because it would not be such a hard choice if they did not.  Now you face this fork in the road and the many have already left because they have chosen but the few still stands there contemplating which one to take.  Hindsight would be a great tool to have right now.  This point is where the cost of being right starts to get higher and higher.

You decide that you are better off being right so you now go against the very essence which is you and because it is more important to be right than do right, you will travel to the ends of the universe to keep everyone believing that you are right.  You begin to ignore any proof of the opposite, dismiss all those attempting to present this evidence and if you can’t convince them to convert to your side or stop repeating that proof, you will use all means necessary to stop them even if it requires violence.  This being right and fighting for it is the basis for all discussions, debates and arguments.  All vocal meetings begin as a discussion before turning into a debate but the trip is fastest going from there to an argument.  You would think that the person who would normally exhibit the doing right gene would have stopped the progression before it got there but there is something about winning that drives all of us, even those who know better, to adopt the being right gene.

So having said all that, the question still remains of the cost of being right.  Consider that every human being was not born being right.  There were things we all had to learn and in so doing, we modified or changed our direction in life.  As we aged and matured, we came to the fork and made a decision.  Some decided to take the being right road while others decided to take the doing right one and those who took the being right path has often wondered why things in life has gotten so difficult for them.  Simply put, you choose the wrong path and as long as you remain on that path, difficulty shall be a constant.  Don’t despair, you can easily correct that path if you choose, all you have to do is make that decision.  You can be full of beliefs but you can only hold one value because all others things flow from that.  You can hold the value of being right or doing right.  Remember doing right costs nothing except the willingness to admit your mistakes, correct them and learn from them period but if being right is all you crave then the real cost of being right is plainly your soul.