On Being Right or Happy…

Which do you choose?

I don’t recall where I heard it first, it might have been from Wayne Dyer or Dr Phil, they both seem to talk about it at times:

If you can be Happy or Right, which would you choose?

And perhaps when I heard it the first time I took it a different way…
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Choosing to be wrong

Yes, that’s what I thought – if you can be only one of those two things, which would you rather be?

And not being happy wasn’t a choice I could make – even if it meant I had to choose to be wrong.

As a smart and creative individual, I’m pretty sure I happen to be right much of the time – and so in choosing to be happy (and not right), I needed to aggressively hold back.

“You want to take the outer route to the store – sounds fine”

Even if it’s longer in distance and time…

“The plan calls for two weeks to get that done – I’m thinking three is more realistic, but we’ll go with two”

And I learned to present my beliefs, consideration, and preferences without (or at least with much less;-) insisting that mine are any better than any one else’s.

Even if that meant that I thought less correct decisions were being made…

A funny thing happened on the way to the market

Perhaps it’s the secondary effect, or maybe it’s what was intended all along, but I now look at situations differently.

I’m happy most of the time, and when listening to others, I get to see their perspective in the suggestions and offerings they make.

And if it really takes a few minutes longer to get to the particular destination than if we headed down the “shorter” path, there’s no issue whatsoever. There’s probably different (and interesting) scenery.

In a crunch

That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking, and there are times and places when being right really matters.

• Highway driving lessons
• Standing up for important issues

The first because you might not get a second chance to do it better if things really go South.

The second because that sort of right goes to everyone’s happiness.

Works for me

And that all seems to work for me now. Less stress, more happiness, a better picture of things.

But even more so, I’m thinking that back when I started, I might have been less right about things than I thought I was… and now I’m open to more possibilities…