#16 – 3 things you are proud of about your personality
Only three??! They all blend together. I like to think that I have (almost) no ego, and yet I have a blog-site where I claim to be opinionated. With the ego comes humility and tact. I can claim that I’m right, without ever insisting that you are wrong.
A man I worked with suddenly, out of the blue one day, said, “If I don’t like someone, I tell them.” Without much thought, I said, “I do too.” “No you don’t.” he replied. “If someone asks you, you’ll admit it. If someone else is badmouthing them, you’ll agree. I’ll walk right up to them and tell them I don’t like them.”
And therein, ladies and gentlemen, lies the difference between truth and tact. Truth without tact – honesty without compassion – is just cruelty. There is little to be gained by actively making enemies. There are too many of them to go around as it is.
The humility helps me accept and deal with reality. Unlike Fundamentalists, I don’t insist that I’m ‘right’, when there is proof that I’m not, or at least reasonable doubt. I have changed my thinking and opinions on a number of issues, as more evidence becomes available.
#20 – The last argument you had
Here’s another place where the list compiler’s mental problems/viewpoint become apparent. This question shows that he believes that Everybody argues to resolve differences, and they do it on such a regular, continued basis that we each have a mental list of arguments, with the ‘last’ one at the top. Sadly, that happens all too often –Just Not With Me!
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Mr. Myagi say, way to avoid punch argument, not be there.
Never argue with an idiot. People might have trouble telling which one’s which.
I learned very early that arguing wasn’t a good idea, that it didn’t really solve anything, and just caused more problems.
When I was 8, and the neighborhood smart(ass) kid was 9, we got into a real argument about what Tarzan’s victory yell from the movies sounded like. I thought that it was like this – he thought it was like that. Here were the two of us, nose to nose, noise polluting the neighborhood….when I suddenly realized that we were at odds over a fictitious movie sound, from a fictional character. The noise level quickly abated.
In my early teens, during the “Beach Boys, Jan and Dean” period of surf and hot-rod music, I came home from high school one day. Since I usually had an hour to myself, I put on a recently purchased 45 RPM record about a ‘Bucket T’, a 1923 T-model Ford hot-rod. I cranked the volume and played it 5 or 6 times, trying to get the lyrics and musical pacing.
Suddenly my Mother came scowling out of her bedroom. She had felt ill, and came home from work early. How dare I keep blasting this song about ‘bucket seat, bucket seat, bucket seat?’ I opened my mouth to argue that it was a ‘Bucket-T,’ when I realized that it was not about what it was about. What it was about, was that my Mother needed quiet and rest. She got it – no argument.
Where profanity is the last resort of a person with no language skills, so too, arguments are the last resort of those with no tact, communication abilities, or anger management skills. If a discussion/disagreement has deteriorated to the point of arguments, both parties have already lost. It is often no longer about who is right, or what is best, but rather, WHO WILL WIN.
Even if you prove the other person wrong, especially in public, you have not won the fight, or a follower, but rather, someone who will bear a grudge and backstab and bad-mouth you forever. I will clearly state my case, but I stay out of arguments. Too often, they involve third parties – (soon-to-be-ex)bosses, police, attorneys and ambulances.
There’s no argument that I would like to see you all here again in a couple of days, for some more of Archon’s nuggets of wisdom.
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