Relationships by John Cali

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Do you feel the need to always be right? In Spirit’s and my work over the years, we’ve seen this need as a dark, destructive force in many relationships.

John Cali

One bright, beautiful spring morning last week, I was jogging in the foothills south of my house. I passed a couple of women walking in the opposite direction. One of them was talking loudly and I couldn’t help overhearing her.

With enthusiasm and energy, she exclaimed, “I’d rather have a relationship than be right.”

That’s all I heard. But it wasn’t too hard to imagine what she was talking about.

I thought to myself, “This is a wise young woman!”

Here’s Spirit.

Spirit

Relationships are one of the most powerful tools you have for your personal and spiritual growth. Like all tools, they are a “double-edged sword” — they can be used for good or ill.

As John said in his introduction, we have seen the damage relationships can suffer when one or both sides lose sight of what really matters in any relationship — be it romantic, business, family, whatever.

In any relationship, by its very nature, there are going to be at least two different perspectives. Not one of you is exactly like another. You all have your own unique perspectives. No two of you will ever see life in exactly the same way. It’s all about diversity — and about allowing all others to be different from you.

Where you often get tangled up in webs of deceit and disaster is when one or both sides insist they are right and the other is wrong. You know, it’s that old dreary, familiar refrain — there are only two ways: my way and the wrong way.

You can see the results of that destructive attitude rippling across the headlines of your news media every day.

But let’s take this down to a personal level. What’s happening across your planet today is simply what’s happening. But you cannot live your lives globally — you can live them only one day, one moment at a time. And the effects of the choices you make at that personal level will ripple out and ultimately affect, for good or ill, all your world.

And so we are asking you today to examine your close personal relationships. Do you see anything in them you’d like to change? Is there perhaps a need for you to have greater understanding and compassion for the other person? That can be challenging when you don’t agree about something.

In fact, if you agree about everything, then — as someone once said — one of you is not necessary. You cannot avoid having differences, diversity. What you can do is be aware of, and accept, that one of you doesn’t have to be right and the other wrong.

You’re simply different — and that is as it should be.

The relationship is of far more value than your self-centered need to be right all the time.

After all, there is no absolute “right.” There is no absolute “wrong.” There is only the love, the understanding, the compassion that brought you together in the first place.

Nothing else matters.

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