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Ep10 Do You Have to be Right or Do You Want Peace

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of …

Do You Have to be Right or Do You Want Peace?

Many of us were raised in a culture where being right was rewarded and being wrong was…well let’s say…admonished, laughed at, reinforced with psychological and emotional pain. So then…we quickly figured out how to protect ourselves from this pain.

It could have happened at home, in school, or with a group of friends. You were little and saw true possibilities and wonder in the world. With a great positive momentum you decide to share your wisdom with someone and they look at you like you were the strangest person in the world. How could you think something so ridiculous…or…you are so full of it, what do you know. On and on…this type of embarrassment triggers our survival impulses in the survival brain and we react. Either we engage in conflict or hide ourselves away. So what begins to happen is that you are molded into a person who is supposed to be like everyone else.

Family, friends, and teachers accept you when you are like them, see things the same way they do and agree with them. Putting the right answers on paper gets rewarded while thinking differently earns you failing grades. So we study and answer the way they want us to more and more because we are told and subsequently believe that this is the ticket to success.

We raise our hands only when we know the right answers, we push ourselves to answer the schools’ tests and believe that we have learned things and go off into the world. Imagine for a second, a system where asking the strange questions and letting your imaginations fly would be accepted and reinforced. According to Psychology Today, Mel Schwartz states:

“Getting the right answer becomes the primary purpose of our education. Isn't it regrettable that this may be inconsistent with actually learning?

Can you imagine the generative and exciting learning environment that would result from a class that rewarded asking the best questions? If you think about it, the most intriguing questions are those that don't offer simple answers. Even more, they drive our thinking into greater complexity and curiosity. This experience would look much different than the rote memorizing and spewing back of information—rooted in right or wrong answers. Raising your hand to gain the reward of getting the correct answer is pointless. It doesn't teach you anything; you already knew the answer. It simply massages your ego, but it doesn't inspire a genuine learning experience.”

Let’s look at this closer for a second. Schools and by extension, families, create a system of reinforcement and rewards for being Right!! So, since we were little kids we have been conditioned to be right.

Scroll forward: You are in a great relationship. The honeymoon period is over and you are settled in for the long term. Periodically you squabble with your partner. Maybe its about some event in the past or maybe its about a line from a movie. Mostly benign events in the bigger picture of it all. You get into it…tit for tat, you pull out all the punches and lo and behold…you win. The victory is yours, you are triumphant. You are RIGHT!!

Let’s see what type of personality you are. Do you keep arguing over that miniscule piece of mental/ego territory saying and displaying all sorts of mean or derogatory things? Or do you find a gentle way to raise your point, if it is absolutely necessary. Maybe you even Let it go…

So thin about that for a second…which one of these types are you?

Scroll forward again: You find yourself at a job/career. You worked hard to get there. Learned all the newest theory. You bring excitement to the game, only to be met with entrenchment, fierce competition, gross incompetence, and a very long and bring future. Just like when you were little you have a choice to...