Benefits of habit “Be kind rather than right”
✓ Improves relationships
✓ Decreases amount of enemies
✓ Expands social network
✓ Decreases amount of people feeling insulted by you
First step:
Once a week
Progress:
1. Today, if you hear someone say something you know is wrong, practice staying silent about it. Do this once this week.
2. Next week, do the same exercise twice. Let others have their opinions and experiences, even if you know they’re fundamentally wrong.
3. Keep it up until every time you hear someone say something factually or emotionally wrong, you keep your rightness in and don’t let it ruin other’s moment.
4. Exceptions apply to times the wrong information threatens someone’s health or life (i.e. vaccinations, food allergies, safety instructions, etc.).
Helpful tips to make it a habit:
✓ Trigger your mind. Practice in front of the mirror, saying “I am kind, rather than right”. Then, every time a situation arises, first remember your mirror practice and only then act.
✓ Let the app help. A reminder can ring you up every morning that time has come to be kind rather than right.
✓ Reward yourself. Once you’ve gone a month of letting others have their moment, reward yourself by dedicating a little bit of time to voluntary work for teaching or other type of help. You’re a kinder person now. Use that to do even more good.
Tips for beginners:
✓ Sample situation. Someone in your close environment decided to take vitamins. They swear it makes them feel better and fight the viruses around them. You know for a fact that taking vitamins is useless save for some exclusive situations, where a lack of some vitamins has been proven by blood tests. You can A: choose to inform the person, explain to them the science behind vitamins and why their efforts are fruitless, making them feel helpless in the process. Or B: you can say, “Alright, hope it helps” and leave it at that.
✓ Achievements. In the situation described above, choosing the option B allows other person feel better and like they can do something about their own health without serious consequences. For you, it will not make a difference in life if person is taking vitamins or not. The only difference: you will not feel the joy of being right while making other people seem useless.
✓ Build relationships. While it may be hard to pass up a moment to correct someone, staying silent often builds more relationships expected. People usually react more to negativity than positivity, so staying neutral or mildly positive in someone’s eyes can help build stronger relationships in a long term.
