You want to be right, or you want to be happy?

I know many have said this, including Wayne Dyer, but I think the first time I heard it was years ago on Dr. Phil. There is plenty of his wise advice that I agree with, such as, if you didn’t get the love or support you needed as a child, give it to yourself now. Or, being from a broken home is better than living in one.

But the advice, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” needs to have the line drawn somewhere. By asking this question, it is also asking us to possibly give up our strong beliefs, our value systems and our true essence.

I get that a lot of times ego gets in the way. That we think our own point of view is so important and superior that we must express it, and we fight for the listener to understand it.

Now, if this saying applies to simple things in life, like, in a simple conversation, I thought they used egg noodles in Chow Mein, and your partner is arguing that they use rice noodles, well, you just might want to surrender and let it go. It really is not that important. Sometimes it seems we argue just for the sake of arguing. And there are many of these things that can come up on a daily basis, and it’s best to, as they say on the east coast, "fuhgeddaboudit."

But, on the other hand, if it is something that really matters to you, something that you need to express, that is a part of your belief system, a part of who you are, and you give in, in order to keep the peace, then you are being dishonest with yourself. And you will find that the more you do this, the more it will begin to eat away at you. The trick is discovering what to keep and what to let go. And, that's not always easy.

So, do you want to be someone other than who you really are? That is the question that you need to weigh carefully. True health can’t be ours if we are living a lie, if we are not speaking our truth so as not to rock the boat. Because once we start giving in, little by little, letting go for the sake of argument, letting go so that someone else can be right, eventually we will no longer be right or happy.

What are your thoughts on this?