Last Friday I got into an argument with a co-worker. Although he may have had a valid point or
two, I was right about what I was saying.
Things got heated and voices were raised. At this point I lost my temper and said some
things I shouldn’t have. Without getting
into meaningless details, we both had a right to be angry…and we both handled
ourselves poorly.
Unfortunately, I am not one of those people that can just
forget about arguments. I play conflict
over in my mind. Was I right in how I
handled things? Could I have done
something different? Was my co-worker
right? Was I being mean? These and many other questions popped into my
head on the weekend. My mind churned and
I couldn’t stop it. It was a bummer.
At the end of it all, I was satisfied that I probably let my
anger get the best of me but I was justified in being angry. I don’t think that I presented myself very
well but the things that I said were true.
I concluded that I was right but sometimes that just isn’t enough. It is almost always better to let cooler
heads prevail…and this situation was no different from most. Despite being right about something, I really
felt badly about going about my business in the wrong way.
I remembered all of the stuff I have learned over the years
about “making peace” and “being the bigger man.” That is what I set out to do this morning…I
set out to “be the bigger man.” I found
my co-worker and we both apologized to each other simultaneously…and I really
learned something. “Being the bigger man”
does not necessarily refer to being a bigger person than someone else. I was no “bigger” than my co-worker. I was bigger than I was yesterday. I was able to let go of my ego and realize
that there are things more important than being right.
There's a quote that I like to hold onto during the rage moments when all I can see is red. The quote is: "I have often regretting my speech but never my silence." While it's true that we need to stand up for what we believe in, and to set boundaries so that people don't treat us like a doormat, we are usually able to do so NOT in that heated moment. But we all screw up from time to time, and the fact that you're blogging about it goes to show that this isn't something you make a habit of doing (acting in the heat of the moment) and in fact, a great judge of character is not always doing the right thing, but how we handle the sitch when we do the wrong thing. And you my friend, because you're you, handled your mistake well. Good job.
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