Being Right isn’t Always Right
We’re at Don Miguel’s restaurant for a great morning breakfast. Shawntel exclaims as she reads the menu: “Oh great! They have avocado toast. That’s what I’m having!” And she says so to the waiter. I join in. “Same here!” Hannah repeats: “Same here!” What we all, plus the waiter, hear from Barrett is: “Same here on a bagel!” So, the waiter repeats our orders back to us all, including: “Four avocado toasts with one on a bagel!” Barrett replies: “No, one of those should be salmon on a bagel!” We all chime in “Barrett, you said “Same here!” He said, “No, I said ‘salmon’!”
It was a humorous conversation – we all heard “Same here!” But what we heard wasn’t correct! What Barrett said WAS correct. He was self-assured about what he wanted and said – and it WASN’T avocado toast. It certainly made for hilarious follow-up discussion and conversation.
Ryan adds. “Isn’t that so true in our relationships? A wife or husband says one thing, but the spouse hears something totally different. They argue about “Well, you said!” “No, I didn’t – I said…….” Each of them are correct because each heard the story differently.
“He said/She said” has many meanings in today’s world. It plays a huge, and often unfair role in many areas of life – in marriage relationships, between a teacher and student, in politics, in the news, in friendships and business meetings. It’s someone’s word against someone else’s word and can happen in the best of relationships.
There is a saying that goes “perception is reality”. Without a completely objective measure, like an audio or video recording, it is impossible to establish the truth. Unfortunately, many people, maybe even you, expend a tremendous amount of energy and emotion battling someone else’s perception to be right. It may have been us when we were relating an event to someone and our spouse or friend interrupts with: “That’s not what happened!” Or “I didn’t say that!” Before long, things begin to spiral out of control unless someone steps in to help them clarify their stories.
The truth is, we never experience an event or conversation the same way as another person. More to the point, we will never really convince them they didn’t experience it the way they believe they did. There is always our version and their version of what happened. All of us – including the waiter heard Barrett say: “Same here on a bagel” when in reality he actually said “Salmon on a bagel!” He was the one who was right. We were the ones who heard it wrong.
But in relationships how do we stop the power struggle? We must drop our end of the rope. We don’t have to justify or defend our perspective. It is filtered through the lens of our own memory and that’s what matters. How do we win? We do it by not having to be right. As soon as we recognize the conversation is headed in the wrong direction, we must STOP talking and reacting. If we realize we made a wrong turn on the road, we wouldn’t keep driving away from where we’re trying to go. It is the same in our conversations. We can tell when the conversation is going south. What is more important, being right or being righteous?
Being right isn’t what Christian living is all about. Being righteous means willingly following God’s commands, and He has instructed us to love Him and to love one another. God wants us to admit that He knows better than we do and to follow Him with trust and humility. God doesn’t want us to argue with each other about who’s right. He wants us to work together as His servants in the world. We could spend the rest of our lives debating each other. Or we could decide that it doesn’t matter whether we’re right or wrong so long as we are doing our best to follow God and love our neighbors.
Being righteous means that it’s OK if we’re not right all the time—we just need to keep God ever before our eyes and continue to care about the people who are working through the right and wrong answers just like us. Personally, I want to be far more righteous than having to be always right – except when I order my next meal and I want avocado toast and NOT salmon!