Do I let this go? Or pound on it until it bleeds?
In the past, I'd pound on it until it bled. Even when that was a bad idea. Even when sometimes, I should have just let it go. In a verbal argument, I could go all Fight Club, and totally ignore when it should end. You know what the seventh rule of Fight Club was? Fights will go on as long as they have to. I haven't always been good at judging when that is. I know better now. That doesn't always make it easy.
It should be enough to know I'm right, and to be comfortable with that, whether the other person (you know, like my husband) will admit it or not. And once in a while, I have to know that I'm not right, and leave myself room to be wrong.
In the short run, this thinking generally makes me crazy. I'm frustrated, and I want it to be acknowledged that I'm giving something up for the sake of peace, love, and a piece of cheesecake with chocolate sauce.
In the long run this means I spend a lot less time on ridiculous arguments that probably aren't worth having in the first place and in which it probably doesn't matter in the end who was right and who was wrong.
I'm not sure if letting go makes me a weak-willed idiot, or a mature and understanding woman who is big enough to know when it's just not worth it.
After all, it feels good to be right. But I think it feels better to be happy. I think I like that since I choose my battles and don't have to win every single one, it means more when I plant my feet and become unmovable on something.
But letting it go can still make me crazy. Isn't being the grown up fun?
Words of wisdom. :)
ReplyDeleteGosh, I really love my husband, but you might be right. You should tell him that. ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt helps to go into fights knowing what you want out of it, and if what you want is for the other person to acknowledge you're right, that's the wrong goal. Good goals are: to feel heard, to hear the other person's point of view, to let them know you hear them, and to find a compromise, etc. If these are your goals, it's much easier and more productive to keep fighting until they're achieved.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think that should be how I differentiate between an important argument and an unimportant one. If the argument is about something important, those seem to be the goals I have, if it's not, I'm thinking about who's right. So, if all I want in an argument is to be right, it's time to let it go.
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