Each one of us has this addiction. Do you know what it is?

By Vianna Vivante

Do you find talking to certain people exhausting but you just can’t put your finger on why? This can include close friends, family members, acquaintances and sometimes even strangers. I am discussing this issue because there seems to be a constant barrage in all forms of media that we need to pick a side on whatever the issue may be at various moments in time. Examples include masks or vaccines for covid19, political issues and candidates, race issues, and on and on. The list is endless. These topics are causing quite a few heated discussions in social media, work places, with friends and around the dinner table.

It took me several years during my career in law enforcement to figure out why I felt certain people or topics drained me. In time I realized some people appeared to argue about anything just for the sake of arguing or a topic was designed to cause a divide. I tried various techniques to interact peacefully with people that were argumentative and it failed miserably. Once I started recognizing that it really just came down to them needing to be right I found a way to not be triggered or pulled in when talking to them.

This year has definitely introduced many forms of communication struggles with all of the hot topics. The need to be right seems to be an accepted form of communication in our society. If you listen to different points of view, there seems to be a constant state of opposition and it just increases our divide as a human race. People on different sides of an issue truly believe their side is wanting what is best but the inability to listen to different perspectives without becoming angry, insulting, argumentative and even violent is where everything falls apart.

The need to be right....the more I thought about it, I realize every person I’ve ever met, and myself, HAD to be RIGHT during moments of talking about conflicting ideas. But where does this addiction come from? Families are deteriorating over this, riots are coming forth from this, people fume within themselves creating stress hormones that decrease immunity function over this... this need to be right.

It seems that without self knowledge and self actualization, life is directed through the energy of our conflicts! AND conflicts generate a need to be right.