Two men are having a heated argument. A great sage come along the path. They stop the sage and ask him to settle their dispute. One man argues his side, then the other. Each then turns to the sage.
One says, "Surely you can see that I am right."
"Yes," the sage says, "you are right."
"But," the other man argues, "Did you not hear my side? Can't you see I am right?"
"Yes," the sage says, "you too are right."
A third man witnessing this event says, "But sage, both men cannot be right!"
"Yes," says the sage, "you too are right."
The morale of the story is that each of us in our own mind is always right. The mind wants us to be right. We are each made up of our own beliefs, ideas and experience. We all bring that to every new experience and it colours our view of it; shapes it to our understanding. Our understanding cannot possibly be the same as the person next to us because they do not have the same history, beliefs and ideas. So yes, we are all right.
I had this stuck to my fridge for a few years. "Be happy, rather than right." I believe this is one I heard in a Wayne Dyer book. I stuck it there when I was going through my divorce and there was much to discuss in the dissolution of property. The reason I put it there was to remind myself that just as I came to negotiations with one set of ideas, my ex came with his own. It wasn't to remind me to give him everything he wanted. It was to acknowledge him and what he wanted. In other words, to be kind to both of us.
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