Have you ever won an argument with instant gratification, and then felt sick at your stomach afterward?
You made your point brilliantly, and the other side was truly squelched, retreating like a puppy with tail between the legs. Yet you immediately realized that you had lost the relationship, itself, whether with your teacher, boss, spouse or best friend.
You may have convinced yourself that you can beat the other guy whenever challenged, that you have complete control of the process.
You shrink back from the recognition that you are a total slave to your own impulses, to your internal wiring. You really have no choice. When angry, upset or frightened, you will fall into a negative spiral of defensive behavior every time.
We are all torn between two forces in our lives: Fear and Desire.
When desire wins out, we advance in life. When fear wins out, we promptly retreat. This starts from our experience of being a tiny baby, laughing or crying. As we grow older, we open up to the possibility of love, and we cover over our fear with anger and aggression.
As we move into adolescence, we develop a cool mask to hide our obnoxious shadow, that place in us where we feel totally inadequate.
At a certain age, we begin to feel a certain satisfaction that our act is being bought, that we are conning people on the surface. It eventually settles into a game of “I won’t call you on your bluff if you don’t call me on mine.”
When people actually do step into our space, all hell breaks loose, and once more, we go into a defensive spiral.
How Being Right Actually Works Against You
While you may think that being right wins you points, you will find that it invariably erodes your social capital.
A pioneer in personal and social transformation, Werner Erhard, suggested back in the 1970’s that we were pitted between aliveness and survival. Aliveness was equated with health, happiness, love and full self-expression. Survival was equated with being right.
Werner created a 60-hour training that caught the imagination of millions of people. Rather than just tell people the truth, he created an environment in which people could see how it plays out right before their very eyes.
As participants reviewed their lives, they saw that they would do literally anything to be right, short of, and including, suicide. No price was too great for the satisfaction of making people wrong, of doing things your own way at the expense of others.
Werner revealed to people that they were not on their own side in life, that they effectually stab life in the back.
Furthermore, he showed them that they had no choice in the matter as long as they firmly held that they were their body or their mind. People would grudgingly admit that they weren’t actually their bodies.
However, people would fight to the bitter end the realization that they weren’t their minds. Should that be the case, what could possibly be left?
Related article: How Self-Acceptance Leads to Inner Peace
What Every Great Religion Teaches – Key Takeaways
Werner was able to bring into the modern age in a very contemporary idiom the central truth of every great spiritual tradition. The way to God, the way to the Abundant Life is letting go and letting God.
Hinduism teaches that ultimately we are puppets in the hands of God.
Buddhism shows that we must let go of every possible self-identification to find lasting peace.
Judaism teaches that justice and mercy far surpass narrow interpretations of an arbitrary moral code.
Christianity from the Sermon on the Mount onward teaches us to judge not, lest we be judged.
Islam shows, by its very name, the central truth: love is surrender to the Supreme Will.
The Hidden Force Behind It All
If we are dominated whether we like it or not with some insane impulse to be righteous at all costs, what keeps this endless cycle going?
It is a false interpretation of the universe based upon preoccupation with our little self.
We are programmed for survival. And the attitude of survival is based on a “rational” fear.
Our ego is nothing more than our take at any given moment on how it all is. When you begin to understand this concept, you can then easily identify it and work with it. If fear is driven by our mind, we must directly experience that which transcends the mind.
The Truth Shall Set You Free
The very moment we realize that we have no choice, we open up to a whole new possibility. Our predicament has been likened to that of a bank manager locked up in her own vault with the key thrown outside. The banker fails to realize that she is in a vault, or that there even is a key, until she awakens to a larger reality. She then awakens from the dream.
Every time you realize that your frantic insistence on being right is creating blindness… and costing you love, happiness, health and full self-expression, you will loosen up your grip just a bit.
Just become conscious and catch yourself in the moment.
To be free, you simply need count the cost. As you keep doing this, you will find over days, weeks, months, even years, that you have lost your attachment to having your own way.
At that very moment, you will discover love underneath it all, the Love That You Truly Are.
The True Cost of Being Right appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
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