The Perilous Right Path

“Most people would rather be right than happy,” said relationship experts Drs. Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks.

Ask yourself how important it is to you. Not in theory, but in your everyday interactions.

I find myself wanting to correct my husband about the details of the story he’s telling. This is actually never a winning strategy, in my observation, but it’s especially futile when the person has Alzheimer’s disease.

So unless I’m talking to a medical professional, I should just let his story be about how I threw him out of the car and he landed on the stairs and cut up his knees. He’s enjoying the tale and I’m guessing most listeners realize there’s some embellishment going on.

I’ll even get into a complicated analysis of a subject, despite knowing his reasoning train left the station a long time ago. Whatever I was expounding on today, the poor guy just said, “You’re being too analytical for me.” Duh. But I was definitely right about it!

I don’t know if this is personality or dementia but my husband excels at mind reading. He told me he couldn’t get coffee at his favorite spot because his companion insisted on a different place. I pay this companion to take him on weekly joy rides so this sounded suspicious. Right? I asked him how he knew and he cited the look on her face. He knew he was right.

He picked up a vibe and made a whole story and then was mad at her because she forced him to go to a different coffee house. My relationship coach hat was conveniently close at hand and I was all ready to educate him on the pitfalls of mind-reading. Experts like me are always right—even if our wisdom falls on deaf ears. Am I right?

I remember author Wayne Dyer saying that instead of disagreeing, he just affirmed the other person’s reality. If they were to tell him what he should do, he’d reply, “You’re right.” If pressed about whether he would follow their advice, he’d say no, and then, in response to the predictable outrage, he’d say again, “You’re right.” I always thought that was a hilarious tactic. He also said, “If you have to choose between being right and being kind, choose kind.”

A friend told me that she was in a blended family with two sons. All four family members always thought they were right and wanted to prove it. This made for some interesting family dynamics. They were working on finding humor in it, she said, knowing they’d never succeed in proving their points to everyone at the table.

In one of my all time favorite books, The Martian Chronicles, author Ray Bradbury includes a story totally based on false assumptions. In “The Earth Men,” he spins a tale about four astronauts who rocketed from Earth to Mars, only to be mistaken by the telepathic Martians for being insane. They assumed that the three men accompanying the captain—and the rocket as well—were illusory projections of an insane mind capable of imposing its delusions on others. Only after the captain was killed, and subsequently the three other astronauts, did the Martian who executed them look at their corpses and the rocket—which still had not disappeared as illusions should. Even then, he didn’t question his underlying assumption of insanity. Instead he assumed he caught the disease and killed himself. It’s a stark story about the consequences of thinking we are right.

On a more playful note, have you ever tried setting a little child straight when they claim to absolutely know something? Like how something works? Or even whether their shoes are on the wrong feet? I definitely have. Futile. They are at a developmental stage where they are the center of everything and so of course they are right about their perceptions. Cue the eye roll. I heard comedian Josh Johnson talk about how his foolish teacher tried to tell him the earth was round. He had seen maps and he had two working eyes, so he set her straight. The earth was flat. He knew he was right.

When it comes to health improvements, finding the actual issue and not the one you thought was the problem is pretty important. I’ve had a “hitch in my gitalong” for awhile that I thought required stretching. When I started working with a PT she told me that my hip was being the hero and taking the stress of the job while my glutes were just along for the ride and needed strengthening. This was uncomfortably close not just to the hip bone but to the “bone” of my personality that can veer toward rescuing if I’m not paying attention.

Politically, it’s very easy to live in a thought silo where all the people and the news feeds agree with us. How could we not be right when everyone we know and trust thinks the same way? Based on our correct opinions, we create strategies and take action. But what if we’re not getting the whole picture?

Recently I read an article by Joyce Vance who writes some of the most provocative political pieces. In her article, The Shiny Pot, she talked about the assumption on the part of many liberals that the MAGA group is made up of stupid people. This is an easy perception if we are wrapped up in the robes of being right. But, like any stereotypical generalization, it’s unlikely to be true.

Instead, Vance posits that MAGA voters were sold because DJT knows how to speak the language of those who have been ignored. He came into emotional resonance with them and made promises he had no plan of keeping but they felt heard and included and valued. Experiences that all of us desire.

As I read her article I thought about times I’ve been sold. I’ve bought way too many timeshare points because the salespeople are skilled in speaking to hopes and dreams and also making each succeeding purchase seem necessary to a functional ownership. I remember when buying Iraqi dinar was the rage. I bought a little bit but I had family members who sunk so much money, betting on a dream, that they had long term financial consequences. But at the time, whether it was timeshares or dinar, we thought we were doing the right thing. Based on deceit and false assumptions.

Were we stupid? That feels inaccurate and cruel—whether it’s about me and my family or MAGA oriented citizens. For sure we all were making assumptions that seemed right but were a small piece of the whole picture. Like the old fable about the blind men describing an elephant by touching only one body part, perhaps we all would do well to get curious about other perspectives before we rush to take action. What would someone who doesn’t think like us say about our proposed action? Do we even know someone personally who doesn’t think like us that we could have a respectful conversation with? That might be a starting place for wisdom, which is a higher prize than being right.

My friend Cylvia Hayes is a lifelong environmental and social activist, with whom I happen to agree. I am most impressed not only by her level of research and her skin in the game, but by how many different news sources she listens to and people with different views that she engages in respectful conversation.

Sometimes our assumptions prevent us from recognizing what is most important. I’ve assumed that even though I’m accompanying my husband on the Alzheimer’s journey, it’s ultimately his disease. He is being steadily changed by it. Then I heard someone say “Alzheimer’s is a caregiver’s disease.”

Somehow that sentence landed differently than all the professional advice about the importance of self-care. What if I’m the one being transformed in the process? I know it’s had an impact on me physically and emotionally. But what if this is my opportunity to come into a deeper resonance with something necessary in me? I’m aware of shifting inner sands even though I can’t say who I may be yet becoming.

I’m a Unity minister and I’ve done lots of study about the divine. I’ve got some opinions for sure. I’ve studied the Bible extensively and recognize the importance of considering the linguistic and cultural and historic influences as well as the purposes of the various writers. I would never be so audacious as to say I’ve got God all dialed in and I’m right, but recently I found a big blind spot.

I was doing some major healing work (part of my response to that caregiver’s disease) when Anita Stewart, a powerful healer, told me “Athena is in the room.” Anita channels my team and they seem to be a wild and varied group. But Athena? Then Anita said, “Yes, the goddess of love.”

Oh wait. I started my adult life as an English major/teacher. I know about Athena and she is not the goddess of love. She’s the goddess of wisdom, strategic warfare, and crafts. I know I am right about this. I’m glad she’s in the room, but I don’t know why she’s here and she’s definitely not the goddess of love.

Oh Lord, make my words sweet in case I have to eat them.

Anita challenged me during that session to start channeling higher wisdom in my journal process. The next day, I decided to ask Athena to tell me whatever she wanted to share with me. I was pretty humbled by her response.

“I am Athena, warrior of the heart. My energy is so much bigger than the stories that have been told of me, stories told through the eyes of mortals who were caught in taking sides and jealousy. Like the Christian god or the Hebrew god that were conscripted by the culture of the times to ride into battle on a particular side and slay the enemies of the writer, I have been so used. But my heart knows no geographic boundaries.”

I realized it had never occurred to me that the Greek gods and goddesses were anything but mythology—literature. While the stories about them may be literature, we could argue the same about the Bible. I know some of my readers will disagree and be sure that the Bible is the only word of God. That sure is what I was originally taught and I used to think that was right. But what if all those wild and argumentative Greek deities are human caricatures of something real?

Athena still had more to tell me. While she may not have been billed as a love goddess like Aphrodite was, being a warrior of the heart is all about love.

“To be a warrior of the heart is to be willing to hold a line about love. There is no situation and no person who cannot be loved. This is difficult for humans to swallow.That which appalls you and is in contradiction to your moral code seems contrary to love and therefore ineligible for love. From your perspective this makes total sense. It’s just that you are stuck in 3rd dimensional analysis and that is not where I dwell.

Without parsing the numbers of the dimensions, let me assure you that beyond time and space on your planet, there are infinite dimensions and so many of them are vibrating as pure love.

From love you are conceived—regardless of whether an individual expression was lovingly conceived by human parents. You and all beings are expressions of pure love, for that is all that truly exists beyond the illusions that are so captivating on planet Earth. Hence the need for love warriors to keep you free of such captivity.

There is a distinction between the actions called for in a moral universe and even the judgments necessary to be rendered to create just arrangements and the hearts who are here. You can take an action but remain firmly rooted in love. And you must do that or you risk captivity that can endure for lifetimes. So I am here. To help you.

Your love for others is your greatest gift and also in the illusory world, can be a weakness when you ignore your own needs to care for others, believing that you are the only one who can do this. There is nobody outside the pale of divine love. All are cradled. And the experience of being cradled feels different for various people and that is not wrong.”

A Prayer for Holding Love Higher Than Being Right

I quiet my mind like a beautiful lake. I take in the beauty of the earth reflected in my waters and allow love to radiate out from me. If I feel the urge to be right dropping into my serenity like a pebble, I allow it to ripple without argument, until I am still again. I trust the God of my understanding is holding the lake of me, the pebbles of my humanness, and every leaf and stick and frog on the shore of my perceptions in its infinite loving heart.

Thank you for reading my thoughts. I hope they inspire you to hold your opinions with a little less insistence and more curiosity and grace.