Do you always have to be right?

          Are you willing to jeopardize a friendship just to prove you are right? Arguably there are times when it is okay to be right, such as stopping someone from putting diesel in a car that takes gasoline or correcting a phone number.

          What about something simple? One of my best friends’ wife was adamant about the sex of Lassie, the TV dog icon from the 50’s. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that my friend was wrong, but what would be the sense in proving I was right?

          It would make her angry (and her pride would be damaged) and because she was so sure that she was right, it would damage our friendship and harm the relationship I have with her husband. In essence showing her how wrong she was would have been fruitless.

          What harm, then, was there in not arguing about who was right and who was wrong about something so simplistic? None! Pick you battles! Does it matter so much to always being right? And there are times when being right, with the wrong attitude, is wrong. No one likes to hear “I told you so!”

          Sometimes people say the wrong word and an argument ensues because neither party wants to back down. A young man was talking with his father-in-law and said the word “pica” instead of “elite” for the print size on a typewriter.

          The older man became insistent about the word swap but the more he argued his point, the more stubborn the young man became. The younger man was wrong because he said the wrong word and the father-in-law was wrong because of his attitude – even though he was absolutely correct. It became heated and both individuals walked away angry with each other.

          Did it really mean that much? Would it change someone’s life? Was the universe in jeopardy of collapsing because of the difference between pica and elite? Do people always have to be that exact?

With the advent of the digital watch many young people have not learned to approximate time. Instead of saying “It’s quarter to three” they will say, “It’s two forty-seven”. Invariably someone else will say, “I’ve got two forty-eight, your watch must be slow.”

          Granted, if an appointment was at exactly two forty-five, it would be okay to know the exact time, but if a person only wants to know the approximate time, it is also perfectly okay to say, ‘ten till” or “twenty after”.

          So then, it’s okay not to always be right – you might save a treasured relationship.