Heads I win, tails you lose.

How do you like that deal?

Does it work for you?

It works for me.

I love being right and winning every time.

How about you?

The temptation to always be right is so alluring that the cost associated with it is often forgotten. And you incorrectly think that the other person has lost, but you too have incurred a loss. You just haven’t experienced it yet.

Buried deep down in human nature there’s a need for survival, and survival is inextricably tied to the desire to defend ourselves and this can also manifest itself in the need to be right.

But it can come at a cost.

All relationships begin as fragile structures and if individuals consistently feel like they need to defend themselves then cracks will begin to form.

Best-selling author Eckhart Tolle describes the need to be right “as a form of violence. At its mildest, it is inflexibility. At its height, it manifests as dominance. The compulsion to inflict our opinions of the world on another originates in fear. Its opposites are humility and compassion.”

Walking away from an argument or conceding to being wrong is extremely difficult to do, but it is possible.

There’s a great question you can ask yourself.

Would you rather be happy or would you rather be right?

Obviously like any other tool this question will not work every time, but if nothing else, if it gives you the opportunity to pause for a moment and evaluate the situation at hand then the question has done its job.

Heads I win, tails you lose might seem attractive at first glance, but the problem is that the person you’re playing with will eventually catch on and will no longer want to engage in your game.  Learning to occasionally concede in relationships doesn’t make you a loser; it gives you the opportunity to play again.

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