HIPS: How To Overcome The Urgent Need to Always Be Right

By Bryan Hyde

COMMENTARY -- Why is it so easy to fall into the trap of needing to be right? 

None of us likes to be wrong or to be seen as foolish. But a pathological need to “win” can keep us from becoming a decent human being.

Sometimes it comes down to placing a higher value on being right than on being understanding with one another. If we cannot allow another person to be right, or to be wrong, without wanting to correct them or dominate them, the problem may be with us, not them.

An unhealthy need to win can damage or destroy even lifelong relationships. 

Sometimes we find that the chance for reconciliation runs out before our pride eventually recedes. 

For every person who goes to his grave with the proud certainty he was right, there are many more who find themselves carrying lifelong regrets for holding on to animosity that changed nothing.

It’s shamefully easy to view others as objects rather than as human beings with the same intrinsic worth that we ourselves possess. Breaking this habit isn’t something that can be accomplished with a mass movement throughout society. 

It has to be consciously chosen at an individual level.

A little humility goes a long way to helping us become the best version of ourselves. It requires a willingness to put in the sustained effort to know who you are and what you stand for. 

After all, it’s pretty hard to care about others when you don’t understand your own worth.

* Hyde In Plain Sight is written by KDXU personality Bryan Hyde. Catch his daily HIPS vignette at 7:50-ish every weekday morning on KDXU and listen to The Bryan Hyde Show weekends at 7 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday nights.