Happiness - It's not about Being Right!

In order to survive, our primitive ancestors had to learn a great many, sometimes very harsh lessons. In trying to find food to sustain them they often ate plants that made them very sick or even killed them. When they learned to make tools that they could use to kill animals for food and clothing, they also learned some of those animals could maim or kill them.

They learned to build shelters to protect themselves from the elements. They learned that stones when broken would serve as tools to cut up food and prepare animal skins for clothing. Little by little they learned the skills they needed to survive for longer and found new ways to ensure their survival. They also learned that other people could kill them if they weren’t very careful. Mostly they lived peacefully going on about their business and working together as a team in order to ensure their survival, until a marauding tribe attacked them. The weapons they had made to kill animals for their meat and skins now took on a much more sinister tone. They now used these same weapons to defend themselves from other people.  Kill or be killed! Be right or die! ‘Having To Be Right’ ~ was the imperative for them for if they were not right, they would surely cease to be.

But In order to survive in the long-term they needed to be able to predict the future; this is how the logic part of our brain, the ‘Frontal Lobe’ slowly began to develop. (See 'About the Brain') This newest part of the human brain to develop made it possible for our forefathers to start forward planning and imagining the future so they could start predicting when to migrate to warmer climates, or to remember when to follow the animals they needed for food would be migrating, and how to ensure they remembered where drinking water was. They had to be right about these things or they would perish.

This compelling subliminal need to be right still survives today as powerfully as it did thousands of years ago. It is this ancient, unconscious survival belief "I have to be right" that causes more disagreements, disharmony, righteousness, bigotry, violence, terrorism and war than any other genetic belief in the human psyche. "I have to be right" is at the foundation of every argument, disagreement, philosophy, power struggle, relationship breakdown and belief system, because at its very core is the false assumption that if I am not right, “I will die”. Sadly we are still trapped in this primitive behaviour. We only have to watch the daily news to see the terror, fear, war, murder and mayhem caused by this this belief. We might be able to transplant organs or travel to remote planets, but we still behave as primitive man behaved. This behaviour might have been understandable and even acceptable for our uneducated forebears, but it is not acceptable now! We have to grow up, we have to stop wanting to be right and start learning to live in peace.

So let's ask ourself; What is the worst that could happen to us if we had to admit that we might not have been right?  The worst that could happen is that we can admit that sometimes we have been wrong, that sometimes we have been pig-headed and stubborn and inflexible and racist and bigoted and sexist and righteous. We will not die if we admit any of those things.  We will in fact be able to be more accepting of ourselves and others and stop trying to control people and situations and conversations and relationships. We can let other’s be right, and it won’t kill us!!!!

If you're still running on ‘survival mode’ you need to eliminate your "I have to be right" beliefs. The negative consequences of ‘having to be right’ are that we are unable to have true communication and empathy with others, and we stay trapped in our primitive behaviour pattern, always on guard and defensive or angry and bitter, which causes serious emotional issues like unhappiness, alienation and isolation and health issues like hypertension, bowel cancer and ulcers. Contact us to find out how you can get rid of your 'having to be right beliefs' or you can go on fighting and squabbling and being an arrogant, pompous prig for the rest of your life!

If every person on earth eliminated the belief “I have to be right” the world as we know it would change overnight and happiness would abound.