>You may have heard the old saw about marriage: “You can be right, or you can be happy.”
--
Happy to see that saying in there. In its sometimes hard to remember that not everyone is as logic oriented as myself.
Happy to see that saying in there. In its sometimes hard to remember that not everyone is as logic oriented as myself.
To tie this back to the article, sometimes being right can work, but it's a risky line to push without the above, a clear understanding of the person opposite you's mental process. That being said, also as the above, I find that in situations where a business relationship can build that trust and understanding even in the face of contrary views on certain things (logic vs emotion, to draw that parallel) a far better working relationship can be established, although I have a feeling to an entrepreneurial community this is stating the obvious :)
I think the author touches on this but not specifically, "be easy to work with" is a nice umbrella that I'd add an addendum to, a hope that both parties try to give each other the benefit of the doubt and some tolerance through disagreement in the hope that the opposite party is doing the same, and eventually, you may not have to worry as much about the friction of being right. (within reason)
I understand that most people value emotional reasoning more than I do. I don't get people valuing it more than logical reasoning.
There is just so much potential danger with implicit and explicit bias. Sexism and racism tends to be more the result of emotional reasoning than logical reasoning. (Think of a jury/judge sentencing a black guy to a harsher sentence than a white guy who did the same crime. Imagine if the difference between if the justification was the black guy felt more dangerous vs a justification such as in this instant the black guy having similar prior offenses. Which justification is racism?)
That being said though, you bring up an addendum I would counter that although you're right to say there is potential danger to emotional thinking, there's potential danger to purely logical thinking as well; to bring this back to my original statement in which avoiding confronting these differences in an "easy to work with" fashion reduces the chances of moving even a little towards a middle ground to 0.
I wonder, if both extremes are dangerous, is the middle ground safe?
With my SO, we're always aiming for "eventually right". When there is an argument, we focus on reaching common emotional ground first. Then, sometimes not immediately, we both talk the issue through calmly to determine who, if anyone, was right, and exchange appropriate apologies. The point being, it's often more important to defuse the situation first, but both of us value knowing the truth about situations, and want to be always on the same page. Otherwise someone will end up having those kinds of hurt feelings that tend to slowly rot you from inside.
It doesn't work with anyone; it takes a honest and cooperative partner to pull it off. And it takes trust. If my SO was as patient as I am, we'd end every argument in 30 seconds with full agreement about the situation, Aumann-style. She isn't, and so I sometimes have to trust that after the storm there will be the phase of reconciliation. And there always is.
Yeah, I tried that in my marriage. Don't insist on being right, let the wife be happy and it'll make you happy. Instead, it made me broke and miserable and so I asked for a divorce.