The Trouble with Being Right

There are few things quite as satisfying as being right. Especially when someone else is so spectacularly wrong.

We may be perfectly reasonable people most of the time. Thoughtful, considerate, perhaps even quite good at listening to other points of view. But catch us when we’re tired, hungry or already having a bad day, and our capacity for understanding can disappear with astonishing speed.

Take a plate.

It’s sitting on the kitchen counter. Someone we live with asks whether we’ve finished with it. That’s all. But something in the question catches us.

Oh, so now I’m being criticised. Apparently nobody notices everything else I’ve done today. And why is it always me who gets picked up on these things?

The prosecution has opened its case.

Within seconds, we’re remembering everything we’ve done around the house, everything the other person hasn’t done, and several longstanding grievances that have absolutely nothing to do with crockery. We could probably produce a detailed spreadsheet if required.

The person who asked about the plate may simply have wanted to put it in the dishwasher. They have no idea they’re now facing a tribunal. And here’s the interesting part. Even if we recognise that our reaction is rather excessive, we may not be particularly interested in letting it go.

After all, we’re right. Or at least we have a very convincing argument explaining why we are.

The joy of a good grievance

We usually think of resentment as something unpleasant, and of course it often is. It can leave us tense, distracted and thoroughly miserable. Yet there’s something strangely attractive about it too. Being indignant gives us a position to defend. We have evidence, witnesses, previous convictions and, best of all, the comforting certainty that we’re the injured party.

Someone makes an irritating remark and, hours later, we’re still preparing our response. We’ve remembered several similar remarks from previous occasions, improved the wording of our original reply and developed a devastating closing argument.

The fact that the conversation ended before lunch is apparently irrelevant. By bedtime, we’ve imagined another encounter in which we finally explain everything so clearly that the other person is forced to acknowledge our superior reasoning.

Naturally, we write their lines as well as our own. They don’t stand a chance. Sometimes thinking about something that upset us is useful. We may need to understand what happened or decide whether to raise it again. A difficult conversation might genuinely be necessary.

But there comes a point when reflection stops being useful and becomes a rather repetitive form of entertainment. We’re no longer working anything out. And sometimes we’re reluctant to stop because putting down our grievance feels suspiciously like letting the other person win.

Which raises an awkward question.

Would we rather be right, or would we rather enjoy the rest of our afternoon? Ideally, of course, both. Preferably with a full apology and written acknowledgement of our excellent judgement. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always cooperate.

Two for the price of one

Other people aren’t essential to the process. We’re perfectly capable of creating misery without outside assistance.

Suppose we forget an appointment. There’s that unpleasant sinking feeling when we realise what we’ve done. We may have inconvenienced someone, and perhaps we feel embarrassed. But within moments, the mind is busy assembling a much larger case.

How could I be so stupid? I should have remembered. I’m hopeless at organising things.

Then we remember the anniversary we forgot, the email we failed to answer and that unfortunate occasion when we turned up somewhere on the wrong day with a birthday cake in our hands.

One missed appointment has become a comprehensive assessment of our competence as a human being. And then, as if this weren’t enough, we notice how critical we’re being of ourselves and start criticising ourselves for that too. An impressive achievement. Two layers of misery for the price of one.

Meanwhile, the appointment still needs rearranging. We might need to apologise or find a more reliable way of remembering things. But the prolonged character assassination hasn’t helped with either. As though genuine remorse requires a certain number of hours of self-inflicted discomfort before we’re permitted to move on.

Feel it. Don’t feed it.

So why don’t we simply stop? Part of the difficulty is that we often think letting go means getting rid of the feeling itself. We’re angry, so we try to stop being angry. We’re disappointed, so we tell ourselves not to be disappointed. We’re anxious, so we insist that worrying won’t help. All perfectly sensible advice.

Unfortunately, our feelings have not read the instructions. We can spend quite a lot of time being irritated about being irritated, which adds another problem to the one we started with.

There’s another possibility, although it may not sound particularly impressive. We can allow ourselves to feel what we’re feeling. We’re annoyed, hurt or embarrassed. Unpleasant, certainly, but not necessarily something that requires an immediate solution. What we can begin to notice is how much we’re adding to the original discomfort.

Are we replaying the conversation again? Imagining another catastrophe? Collecting more evidence of unfair treatment? Turning an ordinary mistake into a sweeping judgement about ourselves? The feeling may still be there, but we don’t have to keep giving it something new to work with.

Letting go can be as unremarkable as noticing that we’ve wandered back into the same old argument and deciding not to feed it. Of course, five minutes later we may be back again, armed with several fresh examples and a particularly convincing point we somehow overlooked earlier.

Ah. Here we go again. We can notice that too.

There may be no great moment of release, no sudden transformation, certainly no guarantee that we’ll behave beautifully next time. But we might manage to stop adding another chapter to the story.

But what if we’re right?

Of course, some things are worth getting angry about. People do behave badly, things are unfair, and sometimes a boundary needs to be established. Anger can alert us to something important. Simply putting up with what’s happening may be neither sensible nor caring. The question is what we do next.

Return to our unfortunate plate.

Perhaps we’re genuinely exhausted because we’re carrying most of the household responsibilities. Perhaps the other person’s comment was thoughtless. There may be a perfectly legitimate conversation to have about who’s doing what. But do we need to bring every domestic offence from the past decade into it? We could say that we’re tired, feeling unappreciated and struggling with how much there is to do. Then, rather inconveniently, we’d have to listen to the reply.

The other person might be feeling much the same way. They might have misunderstood us. Or they might genuinely need to take more responsibility.

We don’t know yet. And that’s one of the problems with becoming too attached to our grievances. We’ve already reached a verdict before we’ve heard the other side.

Sometimes, of course, the other person really is being unreasonable. We can explain ourselves carefully and still get nowhere. Letting go doesn’t guarantee a happy ending. We might need to say no, change an arrangement or make a difficult decision. But there’s a difference between addressing a problem and spending the rest of the week mentally arguing about it. We can take action without needing our indignation to accompany us everywhere.

Meanwhile, life goes on

Our familiar reactions can take up an extraordinary amount of our attention. We can walk the dog while mentally rehearsing an argument with someone who isn’t there. We can eat a perfectly good meal without tasting much of it. We can sit opposite someone we love, nodding occasionally, while privately replaying a disagreement from yesterday.

The dog, meanwhile, has investigated several fascinating smells, greeted a friend, rolled where the fox has been, and had a marvellous time.

We’ve missed most of this.

And life is full of things like this. The unexpected kindness of a stranger. A ridiculous conversation that makes us laugh. The sudden brilliance of autumn leaves, or sunlight catching a spider’s web. We don’t need to go looking for extraordinary experiences. There is enough strangeness, beauty and occasional absurdity in an ordinary day to keep us occupied for quite some time.

Our difficulties don’t disappear because we’ve noticed something lovely. There may still be bills to pay, disagreements to resolve and things that frighten or disappoint us. But there’s room for more than one thing to be happening. Tomorrow may still be worrying us, and yesterday’s disagreement may not be resolved. But there’s a cup of tea getting cold, a dog waiting for attention and a day that hasn’t entirely given up on us.

And sometimes, quite unexpectedly, there’s that familiar sense of awe and wonder. The extraordinary fact of being here at all, in the middle of this untidy, unpredictable business of being alive.

Back in the kitchen, the plate is still sitting on the counter. Perhaps we could wash it up. Perhaps someone else could. Perhaps there’s a conversation we need to have about household responsibilities. Or perhaps we were simply tired, and somebody asked an innocent question at an unfortunate moment.

We may never know, because by now we’re probably thinking about something else.

The dog has appeared, looking hopeful. The kettle has boiled. Someone has started telling us about their day. And the case for the prosecution? It was coming along beautifully. But somehow, it doesn’t seem quite so important any more.