My Struggle With My Need to be Right

You ever have one of these moments where you realize you could be a better person, if you could just let something go?

I'll be frank.  I LOVE to be right.  

Now... I'm mature enough to avoid arguments that I think are unhealthy.  It's not that I have any thought that I might be wrong, it's just that I have a healthy respect for how hard it is to change people's minds and how much emotional energy gets invested in these arguments is too much for me.

But I have to be right.

I watched a comedian tonight admit that even though he was in an accident with a drunk driver, because the police officer at the scene was a piece of work the comedian was found at fault for the accident  He spent lots of time trying to nail the Los Angeles police department, because the officer knew that the comedian was not at fault and wanted the comedian to pay anyways.  At a point he realized that while he was right about the accident, that the way he was handling the situation was destructive.  So he did something I don't think I'd be able to do- he let this go and he paid for the guy's car.

I don't know if I could do that.

I know there was a situation I was in that can make me relate to this.  This is hard to talk about, but I think it might be therapeutic to talk about, and frankly it's the biggest experience I've had with this.  I had technically committed a crime.  I had.  However, there were extenuating circumstances that I felt if I could give justice to them, that I could be acquitted.  Yes, I had committed a crime, but the person that I committed the crime against WANTED me to commit the crime, or at least they (in a way I understood) communicated to me that they wanted me to commit this crime.  Anyhow, this was a hard situation for me.  Not helping matters was the fact I was not mentally well at the time (which I'M CERTAIN does not change the fact that this person wanted me to commit the crime- I wasn't that out of it).  Anyhow, I remember my lawyer telling me that if I took it to trial "I would lose."  Great lawyer.  Sigh.  The sad part is, I didn't learn the lesson I needed to learn from this- that sometimes you have to let go of your need to be right.

It's hard letting go of being right.  I'm pretty convinced I'm rarely ever wrong.  Don't get me wrong, I know it does happen.  It's just not super often.  I'm not very good at letting go of being right.  I think this is going to have to be an area of growth for me over the next five to ten years.  I've got to let go of my need to be right, even if I'm 100% certain I'm right.  Sigh.