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Why We Need To Be Right
It’s the Heart of Connection
Being understood, being reaffirmed. It’s among the very best feelings we can have as humans.
It makes us feel, quite simply, loved.
This is why, when we have arguments or conflicts, it feels so darn good to be right. To have someone confirm us brings about a feeling close to elation. It’s why we fight so hard to prove our point.
The greatest difficulty, though, is that in approaching life this way, we create a zero-sum game. If we’re right, someone else has to be wrong.
Is there a way to change our mindset, and still feel affirmed?
According to J Balcom’s “100 Days of Leadership,” one such way is called the “terrace strategy.” This strategy gets its name from the notion of terrace farming, used in climates like South America, where the temperature is perfect, but the landscape is not, for farming. In order to make crops grow, farmers carve out terraces, stair-stepping their way up steep hills, allowing crops to grow on each step so that water can trickle down the steps rather than washing down the side of the mountain, taking their precious crops with it.
In this idea, each terrace step gets some nourishment. Each step grows strong, and the stronger steps encourage the ones below to reach higher. Where they are is not where they are destined to be. No step has to have a problem or failure, none of them needs an affirmation to reach up. Each step gets its share of sunshine, its share of water, and none of the steps are competing against the others. Even the ones at the very bottom can feel equal to the ones at the top, because none overshadows another.
No argument, no need to prove superiority, but still the connectedness of affirmation.
No zero sum, after all.
