If you have difficulty with always being right, this Relationships Matter Monday commentary, Play to Understand, Instead of Being Right, may make you play the game of life a bit differently.
Image from East Brooklyn Website
There is a childhood game that even adults like to play called Match. For descriptive purposes, it has a plastic blue board with various flags from the different countries around the globe that players flip over to find the corresponding mate. When a person guesses successfully, they score points, and keep taking turns, but when a mistake is made it gets handed off to the next one. In the end, there is clearly a winner and a loser.
Similarly in life, a person makes the personal choice to beat his opponent (AKA be right all of the time) or to choose to extend mercy to the one in the wrong. The decision is always up to the individual. How do you normally play/respond? Are you quick to rub the error in the person’s face, or do you want to know the reasoning behind his or her motivation and decision making process? If your answer is leaning closer to the negative side of life, try this on. What if you could play to understand instead of being right? With this merciful perspective, you are withholding deserved judgment for understanding, which the recipient may truly appreciate. And when you do, the person in the wrong and you both get to be on the winning team.
Play to Understand Instead of Being Right Tips
1. Instead of being right all of the time, choose to entertain this idea of mercy. By being merciful to someone who deserves correction or punishment for their wrongs, you are being kind.
2. Notice the air of superiority you feel when an individual makes a mistake. Play with the idea of being aware of what is there without any judgment.
3. Seek to understand the person first. Instead of accusing, ask them why they made certain choices. You may be surprised that this extension of kindness makes way for compassion. (Parents, it is very helpful to be understanding when dealing with impulsive teens and college-aged kids).
4. Extend the same mercy to others you want to be given to you. Remember the times that others could have ‘let you have’ it but didn’t, and the impact their actions had upon your life.
As in games and in other aspects of life, you want to win, and there is a natural tendency to always want to be right. However, if you reserve that judgment for mercy, you help the other person be a winner, as well as you, which makes this game, called life, much more enjoyable.
Image from East Brooklyn Website
There is a childhood game that even adults like to play called Match. For descriptive purposes, it has a plastic blue board with various flags from the different countries around the globe that players flip over to find the corresponding mate. When a person guesses successfully, they score points, and keep taking turns, but when a mistake is made it gets handed off to the next one. In the end, there is clearly a winner and a loser.
Similarly in life, a person makes the personal choice to beat his opponent (AKA be right all of the time) or to choose to extend mercy to the one in the wrong. The decision is always up to the individual. How do you normally play/respond? Are you quick to rub the error in the person’s face, or do you want to know the reasoning behind his or her motivation and decision making process? If your answer is leaning closer to the negative side of life, try this on. What if you could play to understand instead of being right? With this merciful perspective, you are withholding deserved judgment for understanding, which the recipient may truly appreciate. And when you do, the person in the wrong and you both get to be on the winning team.
Play to Understand Instead of Being Right Tips
1. Instead of being right all of the time, choose to entertain this idea of mercy. By being merciful to someone who deserves correction or punishment for their wrongs, you are being kind.
2. Notice the air of superiority you feel when an individual makes a mistake. Play with the idea of being aware of what is there without any judgment.
3. Seek to understand the person first. Instead of accusing, ask them why they made certain choices. You may be surprised that this extension of kindness makes way for compassion. (Parents, it is very helpful to be understanding when dealing with impulsive teens and college-aged kids).
4. Extend the same mercy to others you want to be given to you. Remember the times that others could have ‘let you have’ it but didn’t, and the impact their actions had upon your life.
As in games and in other aspects of life, you want to win, and there is a natural tendency to always want to be right. However, if you reserve that judgment for mercy, you help the other person be a winner, as well as you, which makes this game, called life, much more enjoyable.