A Guest Blog by my friend and professional speaker – Mark Given
My good friend Doug Wiggins was speaking at a program last Saturday when he made a statement about relationships and marriage that is really wise and amazingly accurate.Doug said………..
“Being right is far less important than being happy”.
I immediately wrote it down, Googled the quote to see if it was borrowed (it wasn’t), and thanked Doug personally for sharing that great thought.
Treating family and friends (especially our spouse) with the dignity and respect they deserve sometimes eludes even the best of us.
I need to do better and ALWAYS live this principle.
Maybe YOU should too?
Here are 5 steps to help us embrace happiness as opposed to always being right.
1. Empathy – When someone stumps their toe, don’t laugh. Bite your lip and show some empathy. Why make the small injury sting even more. It wasn’t funny when you did it, why do we think it’s funny when someone else does?
2. Time – If you’re always in a hurry, maybe it’s time to slow down a little. Everyone else is not on your schedule. Make your priority more clear and schedule in a cushion. Change your mindset and you’ll change your stress level.
3. Memory – Isn’t it funny how we don’t remember things the way everybody else does? Why argue about it. Let them remember their way and you remember yours. Unless you’re standing in front of a judge, little harm is likely to come of the difference.
4. Kindness – The Law of Reciprocity kicks in here with a twist. We really should pass along every act of kindness quickly, even immediately to the next random person that comes along. It doesn’t always have to be (and probably shouldn’t be) segmented into a personal score for every person you know. We choose happiness (and experience more joy) when we choose to not keep individual scores.
5. Appearance – Your style is yours, my style is mine, and we just can’t help commenting on who gets it best. Remember the kid in school who dressed different? If it was you, those comments stung. If would benefit our world (and our happiness) to stop judging.
That’s my five and it’s probably just a good start. The way I see it, we could all be a little better. But then, I’m always right!