The Professionally Correct Attitude

We get two kinds of paths at every turn of life. One is the right path and other is the wrong one. And it is only for the courageous, virtuous and determined people to choose the right path. Those who choose the wrong path end up nowhere and eventually perish. This is what our grandparents, teachers, moral books and fairy tales tell us.

But as I see it and face it everyday in the course of life, the situation is absolutely different. Life does not offer us such easy choices. It is very easy to choose the right path among the two. It might be difficult to walk on it but at least it is easy to choose.

The real test of life is about choosing from two seemingly rights paths. This is what I, and probably many of us, face everyday. I encounter situations when all my alternatives weigh almost equally and then I am asked to choose one. Depending on the difference of situations, the criteria to choose also changes. Sometimes (rarely) we know the criteria and hence can find an answer. But most of the time, it is even more difficult to find the right way to choose the right path rather than choosing it. This is the problem I want to discuss here.

Since childhood, or at least since I remember, I have had an argumentative nature. If I am convinced about a particular point (not necessarily correct, but who can decide that anyway?), I can fight till my last breath to prove it. This doesn’t mean I have no respect for others’ point of views or criticism or feedback, I would be the first one to gracefully accept my fault and try to learn provided I have very convincing and fool-proof counterarguments. But then, that again is an easy choice because I have been proved wrong. It is easy to choose between black and white but life seems all grey to me. I would keep quoting examples and scenarios to prove my point. And most of the time the argument closes because of time constraint.

The problem that arises due to this confusion is that sometimes I almost cross the line between debate and adamancy. This happens when I have already had a non-convincing argument at length. After a while, if the opponent is not able to convince me, I am not sure if I close my mind towards his PoV. Every time it happens so that the discussion starts rotting and remains inconclusive.

In professional scenario, this behavior of mine has been taken negatively at few occasions. Mostly when, at a later stage, I am proved wrong. However, there have been more situations in which I am proved right.

Now, my confusion is: Till I am proved wrong, why should I leave my PoV? And if I stick to it then how do I judge that I am not being rigid? If I have not been proved wrong, then why should I accept an opinion which is not mine? The question here is beyond right and wrong because nothing has been proved wrong yet.

Let me quote two situations to substantiate my confusion:

Situation 1: I was in a conference where we had people from all over the world. We were made to play a game of cards. I was the junior-most in designation among the group. We were given a list of rules to read and then it was taken back. After every hand, people were shuffled between different groups. After the first game, there was confusion about the rules. Everybody was stating a different rule. However, as I remembered the rules of my table perfectly, I almost negated their points and stuck to my rules. After 3-4 hands, it was revealed that the game rules were different on every table, that’s why the confusion. I realized my mistake that actually everybody was correct, but I was so convinced about the rules that I simply ignored them.

Ques: I know I became rigid. I did not know that they were right, but I knew that I was absolutely correct. So, what wrong did I do if I trusted my memory completely? Can’t it be termed as self-confidence as against authority?

Situation 2: While discussing a new structure for an application that our team was developing, I proposed my plan for the same. I was in discussion with four other people (again, all of them senior to me). They all refused to accept it and started finding faults in it. They tried hard to convince me, but I offered equal number of rebuttals. Rather, I gave them real-time examples of possible problems in their plan. After a while, they all were against me and it was a 4:1 situation. Being junior to all of them, at most I pulled my idea back but did not accept there opinion. Two days later, our group manager proposed the same plan as mine and left no scope for arguments.

Ques: I earned a bad reputation for being extremely argumentative and rigid but when I knew that I was correct, why would I leave my decision and accept some other thought?

The outcomes of both the above situations were different but the corollary was same - I earned a bad name.

To all my professional guides, mentors, friends and philosophers, please tell me what the “Professionally Correct Attitude” is!