It seems that some people have accepted arguing as a normal routine in their life. They frequently get into heated discussions, and often with unhappy consequences, with their spouse, their co-workers, and neighbors.
And then there are some people who rarely, if ever, argue. They manage to work out their differences with other people with patience, forgiveness and a pursuit of mutual understanding.
Which approach would you like to see dominate your life?
If you’d like to see less arguing in your relationships, one way to make progress toward more peace is to step out of the human ego.
It’s the human ego that argues.
The human ego takes pride in its opinions and beliefs and often aggressively pushes them upon other people in the belief that its position is superior to theirs. Pride! Self-righteousness! “I am better than you,” are the underlying influences at work. And they can be dissolved with an understanding that it’s much more important to love than to get one’s way. Humility!
Love is always the paramount need for any relationship to flourish, and when a desire to love is the leading motivator for your every thought and word, ways will be found to argue less and love more.
The question, “Who is greater?” is often the promoter of aggression between two arguing factions.
Jesus Christ addressed this issue with his students.
It is reported in the book of Luke:
“Then they began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them. Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’ But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves” Luke 22:24-27, NLT.
To have less arguing in your environs, you can be the one who serves! You don’t have to get your way. You don’t have to be the one everyone says is right. You don’t have to win accolades and honors from neighbors for being the superior arguer. You can be the one who brings love into the mental environment around you and provides opportunity for tension to dissolve. You can be the one that contributes to the end of arguing.
We may pour on the love and others still argue, but at least we know we’re doing our part the right way, and sometimes that is all we can do, and it is enough. We may have to walk away and leave the persistent arguer to God’s care.
But in line with Jesus’ admonition to serve, rather than seeking to be served, an inclination to argue can be replaced with a desire to love and promote peace. It’s a happier path to walk for everyone involved.
It’s hard to argue with love.
My wife never argues. She lives Love. That’s the Christian Science way. The Scientific way of the Christ. I like her as a teacher. She “knows no other way to be.”
Thank you so very much, Evan.
I love this! The very thing I was struggling with this morning. Don’t we all love to be around appreciators? Approvers? People who, like children, magnify and celebrate the good in everyone and everything they think about and see?
Interesting to juxtapose that with the definition of Adversary in Science and Health, “one who opposes, denies, disputes, not one who constructs and sustains reality and Truth.”
I remember that someone once said that the greatest negotiators in disputes begin with agreement, finding everything everyone can agree with, — the underlying yearning for good and order in both parties, the worth of both parties, and whatever is worthy and good in the goal. “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Thanks for your kind alertness here, Evan. Needed.
Thank you, Evan, for another wonderful View. I recently had vowed to myself to stop arguing with a loved one. The vocal stuff stopped but I was still frequently fuming inside. That wasn’t right; a step maybe but not where I wanted to be. That was until the thought came to me that it’s better to love than be “right”. That brought the freedom to enjoy this loved one and others. Thanks again.
I remember in graduate school encountering my colleges with arguments each of us stating our case, defending our positions, jockeying for prominence and acceptance. It carried over for a year later into a political administrative career, then God lead me away from that position and helped me to realize that I didn’t want to be the last angry man whose winning argument made him wrong with all around him and God. Being an A++ personality, I still fight those battles from time to time, but I know the strength that Divine Love brings through it quiet acceptance of right or error, separating error of concept from the truth of being, separating the mortal man for immortal individual of Divine Loves creating unlimited in beauty and light.
over error.
I was taught yrs ago in nurses’ training…”To bend, blend, and bless.” Has been so helpful to me these many yrs.
Thank you, Evan.
When someone pushes an opinion that is opposite to mine, I don’t take it as meaning that they’re trying to say they’re better than me. I think that would be rather narcissistic, to take it that way. It doesn’t mean they’re self-righteous. I just think they’re expressing their opinion, which I generally try to listen to in a patient and tolerant way–hoping maybe I can learn something–and I hope when I express my different opinion, they’ll accord me the same favor.
A much simpler way and very successful that I use is what JESUS did in the presence of Pilate. He prayed, kept quite and let God do all the work. If they who heard me screamed, let them scream. The right will always win out.