Dear Pogue,

Forgive me! This started as a short thought and just kept growing!

I have been noticing that amongst people there is often a need to be right. Have you ever noticed that? And being right, there is then a need to prove that they are right. I am sure there are all sorts of reasons why people find it necessary to prove themselves as the one with the knowledge and a psychologist could no doubt write a long paper on the subject telling us about upbringing, insecurities, need to succeed and a whole load of other stuff. But me, it just makes me sad.

Yes I appreciate there are times when being right is very important such as the doctor seeking for the health of her patient. But for the most part, and this is what makes me sad, it’s people getting one over on others, letting their ego strut its stuff, showing off, pandering to their own insecurities. And I want to suggest that more often than not, being right is a journey down an ever narrowing path. You see, the drive to be right can make a person single minded and being right can overtake the desire to understand. Tell me, what do you perceive as the better, being right or going through life with an open mind?

For me an open mind is a wonderful gift allowing the holder the chance to see the breadth of life, to explore things without preconceptions and making possible a change in thoughts and understanding. It allows the world to become a treasure trove of possibilities. But even more than that it does away with the need to be right and make someone else wrong because one can only be right if there is wrong to be compared with.

Who decides what is right or wrong?

You do. You determine what is right and what is wrong. Just consider that in different places at different times right and wrong swop sides. That situations change and cause people to see things differently. What if I suggest it is better to see things as just being what they are. Maybe you don’t like a particular thing or situation. Then act on your feelings and walk away but don’t insist on your own actions being the right ones. Allow that there will be a number of possible understandings and emotional engagements in every moment and it will not always be the same for each of us. Goodness, imagine, as I believe, it was proven undeniably right to support Manchester United, there would be no other teams to play against because we’d all support the same team!

I may not understand why you dress as you do, read the books you choose, follow the career you are but I accept you do. And the world is richer for the diversity you bring.

It’s said that enlightenment begins when I can look on another person and do so without making judgement, just find acceptance. Do I always find what they are doing comfortable? No, but then I can ask them to consider their actions, to respect my feelings. Am I right? Are they right? No. There is no right and wrong. More often than not things just “are”. I feel what I feel, believe what I believe, based on a life time of experience and you, you do the same. But we arrived here by differing routes so are bound to see and experience things differently.

So this week may I encourage you to embrace an open mind? To approach situations believing that there is no right or wrong, things just are. And we all handle those things differently because of what has gone before in our lives. Think, there may be a time when to say: “I am right” making the other person wrong, may, unwittingly, call into question their whole life experience that has brought them to where they are now. Bit dramatic I suppose, but that’s what judgement can do.

Shall we become the enlightened this week? It will require a wider view but, hey, what else are we going to do. And being right all the time is so overrated!

Yours, always striving for enlightenment,

Wic