Right or Happy … You Choose!

Growing up many of us were taught that if we do right, be right, live right then we will be happy. There seemed to be a positive correlation between rightness and happiness. And for the most part it worked. At home and at school right was rewarded and wrong was punished. So many of us grew up chasing rightness because we knew that happiness would soon follow.

What we were not taught though was that what we believe to be right is not universal. That the understanding of what is right sometimes differed. That what other people deem as right is not the same as what you were taught was right. What we we also not taught was that not everyone valued happiness. That other people were not chasing happiness as we were and so it was not a motivation to be right.

We were also not taught was that the very act of being or doing could get you into trouble. That not everyone will be happy with your being right and this may lead to your unhappiness. That the more right you insist on being, the more unhappy you may end up being.

And that is where the conflict between right and happy started. Suddenly happiness became illusive because rightness was not so straightforward. Granted, there are situations where right and wrong are clear to all involved but as one grew up there was a realisation that there are so many more situations where there is a lot more grey, where right or wrong seems to be subjective and not so clearcut.

As an idealist this conundrum plagued me throughout my childhood to my adulthood. For a long time I carried the need to not only be right but to be seen to be right (to some extent I think part of me still does). Until life gave me a few hard lessons where I came to the understanding that I don’t always have to be right. Where I could look at a situation, believe that I am right and yet not feel the need to sell it or convince others about it.

My joy came when I started letting go of the right to be right. I had to admit that my need to be right had a lot to do with my own sense of self-worth. That I had wrapped my identity around being seen and being accepted as right by others so much that I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t being ‘right’.

Now obviously there are moments that need rightness, for example in life-or-death situations there is a need for a clear right. By all means, do right and speak right. Even then, ask yourself if it is about the situation being right or is it about YOU being right.

I believe the motivation must not be to be right over others. The problem is when your rightness is in competition with the other person's rightness. And that they have to accept and admit your rightness over theirs. Ask yourself why you need to prove yourself right so strongly? Why is it that you need to be seen to be right?

You see, when you do not feel pressure to be right you speak less, listen more and do not feel the need to sell and oversell your viewpoint. When you know you are right you can afford to be humble and gracious about it. You can afford to let people figure it out for themselves. Sometimes we force our rightness over people because deep down we are also not so sure about it and need our rightness to be validated. It becomes about being seen to be right rather than about being right. The continued need to be right reflects more on you than on the topic you are so passionately being right about.

If your rightness is going to alienate others, is it worth it? If your rightness is going to leave people feeling worse about themselves, is it worth it? The reality is that the continued need to be right and the continued forcing people to ‘hear YOU’ soon leads to people actually not hearing you anymore. It soon becomes noise that people learn to tune out before you even start. You may win the battle with your rightness but lose the relationship, ask yourself if it's worth it. If no one is going to die or be harmed (except maybe your ego) when your rightness is not acknowledged then perhaps you can afford to let it go.

Now, I am not talking about truth, I am talking about your being right. That is not always the same thing. Many of us tend to think because we feel right about something then it must be truth. Some people feel so strongly about the opinions they hold that they have made them ‘truth’. (That is a topic for another day.)

My peace really came when I started embracing the saying that ‘in life you may be right and you may be happy … just not always at the same time’.