Redefine winning

"In order to have an alive, joyous life, you have to give up being "right." You must simply be willing to let go of the need to have the point of view that you are right dominate all aspects of your life. This is especially challenging when you are, in fact, correct. But if you have to prove another is wrong, even if you win, you lose. Something inside you is less alive"

A while back, I wrote about the importance of understanding you can be wrong. I want to further expand on that idea to show that, contrary to what we are taught, being "right" doesn't always correlate with "winning."

This is pretty counter-intuitive as early on in our lives we watch people debate, we learn to debate, and we are instilled with the idea that within debates, there are winners and losers.  Winning is defined as being right and proving your point; losing is defined as conceding.

I will admit, a lot of times, this is probably going to hold true -- but the reason it holds true is because what you would concede would go against your beliefs, values, or ideas. The difference is when being "wrong" doesn't do any of those things, it simply hurts our ego because we don't get to be right.  And the problem with this? Sometimes the only way to prove yourself right is to prove someone else wrong, and when it comes to proving someone else wrong, that has the potential of being hurtful.

Across the board, I would urge you to consider what winning is prior to entering a conversation, debate, or argument.  Put "being right" aside for a second, determine what you want to be the result, and figure out the best way to accomplish that result.  Sometimes the best result is to not bring down another person, and sometimes that requires you saying you are wrong (even if you are not).

You can be wrong

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Aristotle

One of the most important lessons that I could ever share with you is the need to have an open mind. While I hope all of the lessons in this blog are helpful to you in one way or another, I will always respect your right to disagree with each and every one, with the exception of this one lesson.

Being open minded not only opens yourself to the endless opportunities that this world has to offer, but it also makes your views of the world deny hatred and discrimination.  I will save the latter half of that argument for another time, but right now I want to focus on the mindset of being open minded and what it does.

Your mindset serves as the lens that you see the world and is more powerful than you could ever believe.  As I discussed in this post, just believing can change your life completely, knocking down barriers that you never thought you could and achieving more than you ever thought possible.  The greatest thing I could ever wish for you is to have a strong and benevolent mindset.  To have a strong mindset, there is a balance between being firm on your values and adaptable to the changing world with adaptability being the most important piece in that puzzle.  As you continue to read these posts, I hope that you do not take them as fact, but rather as an opinion from someone who is trying to look out for you.  I could be wrong about everything I tell you, but my goal isn't to create your thoughts, but rather just provide you with ways to shape your own opinions.

A simple way that I have used to shape my views on everything in life is to know that I might be wrong -- I might be wrong about everything I believe. It is a scary realization to come to, but an important one. Start thinking about all of your opinions and beliefs and ask yourself how you came to each of them. Each was formed not from a simple experience, but by piecing together various experiences to form your current thoughts.  To assume that you know everything right now is ignorant and in the same regard, assuming everything you know is more than another person is equally as ignorant.  Never assume you are right.  This means more than giving another person a chance to speak, it means listening when they do, really listening and then deciding if you agree or disagree.

One thing that I am looking forward with this blog is the day posts start conflicting with earlier posts. The reason is that while there are things that I feel strongly about today, I hope I don't feel the same way about all of them throughout my life, because otherwise that would mean that I have learned nothing of worth since the time that I made my opinions. Stop and think about that. In order for you to grow, so must your thoughts and beliefs. I am not saying that you must constantly change your views or that growth requires you to change your mind, but it does require new experiences and additional context, and in order to grow your thoughts, you must have an open mind.

As you continue to build an open mindset, one danger I will warn you about is the perception that you are not confident in your opinions. Naturally, if you assume that you might be wrong, you are assuming that you might not be correct and in doing so it could change the way you frame your statements. Two topics that I plan to write about in the future is the idea of confidence vs. arrogance and the idea of perception vs. reality. Without getting into either in too much depth, be aware of how a mindset that is open to alternative views leaves something to be desired when people are looking for definitive statements. Just like many things in life, being self-aware can allow you to do wonders in believing what you want to believe and presenting yourself in the way you want to be appear.