Being right can be a real curse, especially when you know you're right but no one takes your advice. A beloved friend or family member could have avoided so much unhappiness if only he or she had listened to you!

Most people have to do it their own way. We all need to make our own mistakes, after all. We will plow right ahead, making big messes in our lives, in spite of expert advice. Sometimes we can't learn any other way except to mess it all up - that's human.

In that light, we often do others a disservice by not letting them fall. Big lessons come right before a leap into higher-quality life. These life lessons develop skills we didn't know we had -- and, in order to learn them, we have to get out of the mess we created by being wrong. So, avoid the curse of being right -- don't take it personally when no one takes your advice.

The Nature of the Curse

The human mind has an automatic need to justify -- to explain and understand everything in order to feel safe. When we feel afraid, we often lie, blame and justify automatically. The brain gathers data from internal memory banks or the outside world to back up our position and make us right. The brain ignores, or deletes evidence that doesn't support its position. It makes assumptions based on its programming and tells us this is right or this is true and we believe it. Imagine how out of whack you might become if your self-esteem felt in jeopardy all the time because of unconscious fears and unfinished business.

In some ways, the brain has a point. Being right can solve the basic problems of optimum survival. To be right is to be powerful. Primitive man depended heavily on his instincts to stay alive. In the jungle, if he walked under the wrong tree he could be dinner for a large cat or fatally bitten by a snake. If he was wrong, he died - if he was right, he survived. The person with the knack for being right became the leader. Hence, the need for power and authority figures when we can't figure out what's right.

Trouble is, the brain doesn't know we are not in the jungle and that this is the twenty-first century. We still get a feeling of power (life) when we feel right and shame (failure, death, and shutdown) if we feel wrong. How can this not affect our health?

The curse of being right often messes up our relationships with others by creating unnecessary conflicts. The choice becomes do we want to be right or do we want to be happy, loved, and at peace? Much of the time, we choose to let the power surge of I'm right blow off the finer energies of peace and unconditional love. In some of us, the obsession to be right can become a disease, alienating us from everyone and making us very lonely people. We skillfully learn to make others wrong and sacrifice love for power -- the old it's my way or the highway mentality. This dynamic helps create the high level of heart disease we see all around us.

Addicted to Being Right

Because it feels so powerful to be right, we can get addicted to it, especially if we have ever felt wronged (unworthy, not good enough) at our core. Noticing all of the power plays, subtle attacks and manipulation we do in an effort to maintain our rightness can give us a clue as to how much fear people really carry.

What compounds the problem is our mass belief in punishment. It we are right, we are proud and get a reward. If we are wrong, we get punished and shamed. We were indoctrinated into this system when our parents used it to control us as children. It is how power and authority figures, governments and religions continue to control us. We keep the game going to control ourselves through inner voices and feelings as well. Notice that critical voice in your head that tries to whip you into shape, or picks out all of the flaws in others, making them wrong to get that little bit of a power surge.

If you had more punishment than reward as a child, you may feel a very strong need to blame, shame and justify. We create feelings of righteousness in an effort to avoid the feeling of being wrong. Another part of the dilemma is the false mass-mind belief of a universal Right Way. Thinking our way is the Right Way leads to believing our opponent's way is the wrong way. This is the cause of all war. We attack others, then gather criteria and evidence to prove our way is the best, right, correct and true way, which then justifies the attack.

Whenever we have to justify our behavior, we are on shaky ground. Why? Our brains are totally biased on our behalf. Believing everything our brain tells us can have grave consequences.

We are taught to fight for what's right and feel vindicated because we do. This part of the Curse extends itself to group dynamics when our group believes we are the right group, the chosen group, the most socially acceptable group. Think of the terrorist who believes he is working for God, but missed the little of piece of information that runs through all religions - God is love. Humans have to delete that information to make war in God's name.

The Right to be Wrong

The truth is that everyone has a right to be wrong. We all have a right to our opinions. The trouble is that everyone believes the brain when it says, Our opinion is the right opinion because it feels right, looks right, and sounds right so it must be right! But if everyone is right, who is wrong?

We stay at war when we get caught up in thinking that our opinions really matter. It takes an emotionally intelligent person to see that it's really okay to be wrong. Our self-image won't collapse if we are wrong. As a matter of fact, some of the best lessons we learn are when we take a big fall.

Life grants us the right to make mistakes and encourages us to do so. If that wasn't the case, mistakes would be rare and we wouldn't need forgiveness when our mistakes encroach on other people's territory.

Our personal growth, health and quality of life expand when we give up the curse, lay down our sword and start to respect others (including their opinions) unconditionally. We all have a right to form our own opinions and live with them. It is very kind to let others be right. In fact, the words "you're right" can put a person into bliss, and from their perspective they are right.

We can develop a mental witness state where there is room between us and the world of data, assumptions, opinions and beliefs that our brain continuously feeds us. Create a space by pausing to weigh whether being right matters or not. Ask yourself if you are operating out of assumptions or facts. Assumptions are never based on fact; rather, they are based on evidence your limited brain has gathered.

Ignore assumptions. Realize that if it doesn't matter, you don't need to go there. In this way, you will create more peace, vision and true safety in life instead of adding to conflict and wasting a lot of energy in defending your opinions. Make it a habit not to believe your brain. Understand that your brain is just a machine. Like your computer, it can only give back to you what you have programmed into it -- be it data, software or hardware.

It is all just programming.