But the fact is, their empathy changes nothing- I still have to work for an incredibly frustrating person. So every day I try to make the conscious choice to be happy instead of right. I’ve gone so far as to tell my coworkers not to express empathy; this person is off the table as a topic of conversation. The only person who is feeling miserable is me!

So days it works, some days… not so much.

In my opinion the problem of people who want to be right is: being right makes them happy! Of course it is a great feeling being right. Exspecially when you have presice knowledge in a discussion or whatelse. To have knowledge is the one thing, to use your knowledge in a right way is another. What can you win with knowledge, when you have nothing else? In Germany we say: Stupid people are dangerous. In my view: intelligent people (with knowledge) are even more dangerous.

I liked the text by Henrik very much. Maybe adding the point of knowledge is helpfull for the understanding. Just a personal hint by me.

I can think of a number of times in my life when I was delighted to discover after the fact that I had not been right about things that seemed so right at the time.

An authentic person knows that rightness or wrongness changes with new discoveries. Those of us who cling to our point of view even in the face of its “wrongness” are sad and scared people indeed.

The scariest thing of all, however, is when even the most enlightened of us find ourselves in the miserable position of clinging to a point of view so tightly that any other view is shut out. Hopefully we catch ourselves in time to snap out of it.