I have spent so much time in my life trying to be right. Trying to design the perfect website. Trying to design the perfect argument. Trying to make sure that the sounds coming out of my mouth are the perfect arrangement of words.
But I believe that being right is about being critical. It is about knowing how something is and then saying whether it is right or wrong. Good or bad. Positive or negative. At its core, it is judgment, critical judgment.
This drive to first know and then to judge is automatic for me when it comes to relationships. Somebody says something to me that hurts me? Defend how I’m right and attack how they’re wrong. Or, oddly enough, defend how they’re right and attack how I’m wrong. This reflex is so ingrained that in the heat of conflict, I find myself hurling these attacks with nearly every other thought.
Yet, in these moments of right/wrong, I find myself deeply disconnected from myself and from the other. I start to spiral into anger (an external attack) or shame (an internal attack) and in these states, I forget about our humanity. I forget our fallibility. I forget how, no matter how much we try to know, we will never know everything.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. -Samuel Johnson
The times in relationship where I have felt most connected to someone is when I have admitted that I don’t know what is right and what is wrong and frankly it doesn’t matter. What matters is admitting that I don’t know and feeling connected to the person. Feeling love for the other. Feeling love for the self.
This is so very hard to do. I feel proud that I am embarking on this journey. I feel proud of my progress so far. I feel humble in knowing that just when I think I’ll have the right solution, life will smack me in the face and bring me back to uncertainty.
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