Being wrong is simple and seemingly undoable. There are a lot of ways to get there, but only one name for it. It's easy to be wrong, but somehow easier to believe you aren't. And maybe it's because it's this deadweight of a word -wrong- with no way out, that makes it so difficult to admit to being associated with it. Wrong just sits like a stone in the bottom of a muddy riverbank, and it sounds like a low-pitched gong resonating loudly in your head and for everyone to hear for miles and miles. Right flits around changing shape and color and meaning as it pleases, it's whimsical and everyone loves it, it sounds like birds chirping or windchimes. So pleasant. If I could choose one, I'd choose right. Who wouldn't? And I have chosen it again and again throughout my life.
Conflict is important to growth. And what I'm learning is that I. Hate. It. I wish I could avoid it altogether. And even when I can't, I sometimes find a way by shutting down, out, or up completely. And honestly, that's wrong. What I do when I think I'm protecting myself is shut people out and choose what I see as right action (or inaction) to take over where peacemaking, resolution, or understanding could be present. I could spend a lifetime writing out the wrongs inflicted upon me by others, while I wait for someone to apologize or validate what has hurt or felt unjustifiable. I have written countless rants about the wrongs, and not enough about what people have done that has felt, right by me.
My friend Jadyn said she'd learned that it's better to be happy than right. She said every time she's confronted with conflict with another person she asks herself quietly, 'Would I rather be right? Or happy?' She almost always chooses happiness, and when she doesn't, she regrets it.
I have been battling it out with a friend for months. A miscommunication that turned quickly into an unfixable break that has seeped into these sacred places in my life. It's inescapable. It's not going away. And I was refusing to face it because I didn't want anyone to see me as wrong. What would that steal from me? What amount of pride would it take away?
I was riding my bike today and found myself drawn to her apartment. I wrote a note on her car just asking what I need to do to make it right. I wrote the note to begin making it right because, it isn't worth it. It just isn't. Sometimes I think that fights are just our internal conflicts manifested in another person. Our personal battles, fears, and judgments projected onto each other and then of course amplified by our own unique inability to understand or help.
I'd rather be happy than right. I'd rather offer my friend and myself the right to a life without unnecessary conflict. And I hope to keep trying to choose this, even though it is so hard. I don't want to be the person who creates discord and unhappiness for anyone in this world. And, as I've said before, this is where I have to start if I ever want to do things differently; with what's right in front of me. Taking right action. Making something right. Writing a new set of rules.
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