Them’s Fightin’Words

I’ve decided to try an experiment with myself. It was spurned on by the following scenario:

My Honey and I have this running argument about the dishwasher. He says I have “poor dishwasher management”. He’ll go back into the dishwasher and reload it after I have loaded it. (He never loads it initially) Then, he’ll mutter to himself (and I can hear it, and he KNOWS I can hear it) about where everything “should” go.

Then, I defend the way I do things, finally offering that if it means so much to him, he is welcome to take over the loading of the dishes. It never happens…I’ve let the dishes stack up for three days with an empty dishwasher and there they stay, unloaded.

The other day, I did to him what he does to me-I rearranged and let HIM know the right way. Then, at that moment, I decided that was possibly the stupidest way I have ever spent 10 minutes. It made me reflect on other places I feel compelled to be right.

I noticed my tendency to defend aloud what I believe is right, even if the subject matter is not that “deep” or life altering. When someone says, “X” and I believe they “should be” saying “Y,” why do I feel compelled to contradict aloud? Why do I feel the need to “correct”?

For most of my life, I agreed with people or let them have “their way” to my detriment. It was so they would not be mad at me…a real people pleaser. Then, I did the classic 180-I had found my voice and was hell bent on using it.

My experiment: What if I spent a week letting people think/say what they want to think/say, and not agree or disagree with them?

So far, I’ve done this for a total of 5 minutes. It already feels hard.

One week…I’ll report back after a week.