Bored at work today, I started reading writers' blogs that I haven't read in ages. Some I've never read. I was highly entertained and learned a lot more about people that I thought I knew well. So I decided it was time to fill my blog with more than the story behind my name. Immediately after I made this decision, something happened at work that made me see part of myself more clearly. A part of me I always knew was there, something my Mom would always point out to me, something that randomly gets thrown back in my face. Like I said, I've always known it to be a part of me, but somehow, I've never really seen it as a flaw. It's never been something that I felt I needed to change.
I'm a very stubborn person. When I think I'm right, I mean, really think I'm right, I will fight for it. I try to see the side of the other person. I try to be reasonable. But I stand firm to what I believe. I can be a bit argumentative at times. People often suggested I join the debate team. I've always been up for a good, healthy debate. After I matured a bit, I stopped getting angry at people for things, and tried to make debates something where we could both walk out still feeling happy and as friends. A friendly debate, if you will. Topics such as Mac vs. PC or cats vs. dogs. Every once in awhile, though, something hits too close to home and I feel this sudden desire to fight to the death. Most of the time, it's unconscious—I don't even realize I'm doing it. It's when I feel that someone or something that I am attached to has been compromised. It's when I see a close friend making stupid mistakes. When someone attacks people or ideas that I hold dear. When I feel betrayed and can't figure out why. At those moments, the realistic part of me tries desperately to surface and calm the turmoil, reaches out, and tries to honestly see the other perspective. However, that part of me clashes with the stubborn part of me that refuses to be wrong. So, I end up asking for opinions, asking for help, but whenever someone reaches back, trying to show me the other perspective, I lash out and shoot them down. In my mind, I can see their point. I accept their point. In my head, it starts forming an argument to counteract my selfish one. But it never reaches out of my head. The person trying to help me never knows that they made a difference in my opinion. All they ever see is me shooting down everything they say.
My mom received the blunt of it when I was a child. I'd ask for help on a school project, she'd give her opinions of what I could do, and I'd constantly tell her why they wouldn't work. Ofttimes, it would get to the point where we'd both be in tears and she'd threaten to stop helping me because I didn't like her ideas. What she didn't realize was that all of her ideas were swimming around my brain, putting them together so that the weaknesses of one were supplemented by the strengths of others. In the end, something of hers would mesh with something of mine, and we'd end up with something more fantastic than anything either of us had dreamed of. But it took quite the emotional strain to get there. It wasn't until later that I realized that I could have handled it much better. I could have asked for more options without shooting down every idea she had. I hope I have become better—that I treat people with more respect now. However, I realized today that I still have this unfortunate trait.
As most of you know, I'm a die-hard Harry Potter fan. I waited and waited for the fifth Harry Potter movie. I went to see it last night, giddy with anticipation and excitement. The first 5-10 minutes disappointed me greatly, and it was a downhill spiral from there. For reasons I'm too exhausted to get into here, I was sorely disappointed with the movie. I felt like I had been betrayed by a friend. I spent much of last night discussing the ills of the movie with those that I saw it with. I spent the morning arguing with my coworkers, because they felt it was the best Harry Potter movie ever. I couldn't fathom how they could believe this. So I argued the morning away. The more I argued, the more I felt I was right.
I don't know what happened, but somewhere around lunch time, I realized that I didn't want to dislike the movie, and everyone else saw good in it. I wanted to know why they thought it was so good. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to not feel betrayed by this magical world that I've become enraptured with. So, instead of arguing why it was bad, I started asking why it was good. (This is the reasonable side trying to find peace and harmony.) However, with every reason they gave, the stubborn side of me reached out and shot it down. I couldn't accept their reasonings. Each reason, on its own, was not enough to make a good movie. It wasn't enough to make up for, what I saw, a gaping hole. Finally, truth hit good and hard in the form of a coworker saying, "If you want people to give their opinion, perhaps you shouldn't shoot down everything they say," and another quickly agreeing. That comment hit home really hard. I suddenly reverted to elementary school and working on a school project. I was taken through every conversation I've had where people get frustrated with me. I wasn't offended by any means. If anything, I am grateful that they pointed it out. This is the first time I've really realized that it is a problem. Something that I need to work on. I need to learn to let things go instead of beating them to the ground.
Thank you Mom, coworkers, and friends over the years for putting up with me and helping me see my flaws so I can overcome them.
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2 comments:
You're not alone; I struggle with the same problem sometimes, and I know someone who will agree.
My deepest apologies to that someone.
Sometimes I see myself doing the same thing also.
Currently I can see it more clearly in someone else I know. This person apparently refuses to try to understand anyone else's point of view. He has a closed mind, and he is proud of it. He argues everything, but ineffectively because he doesn't understand where other people are coming from. Sometimes when he attacks my beliefs he assumes I believe that Jesus was a flawed individual, and then he tries to discredit Joseph Smith using lies and half truths.
There was a good talk in General Conference in April, 2006 that has been helpful to me when I disagree with someone. See Robert S. Wood, "Instruments of the Lord's Peace." If we just stop and try to see the other's point of view in a way that we could present it to others as the other would want it presented, it may help.
"I recall that as a graduate student I wrote a critique of an important political philosopher. It was clear that I disagreed with him. My professor told me that my paper was good, but not good enough. Before you launch into your criticism, she said, you must first present the strongest case for the position you are opposing, one that the philosopher himself could accept. I redid the paper. I still had important differences with the philosopher, but I understood him better, and I saw the strengths and virtues, as well as limitations, of his belief. I learned a lesson that I've applied across the spectrum of my life."
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