Opus 2022-294: Not Now

I have become a difficult student in my grumpiness.  I don’t think I was always this way but I have a hard time just accepting all that I hear.  As a case in point the pastor recently made a statement about the “chosen” which didn’t feel right to me.  It had something to do with how the word was always used in the Bible.  I felt like I could come up with a few exceptions off the top of my head.  When I get like this I bite my tongue, reign in my spirit of know-it-all and learn to wait for a better time to argue with the top dog.

That does not mean I ride quietly into the sunset.  It means that I start thinking about the possibilities.  There are many options to keep in mind
    He may be wrong
    He may have not expressed his thought correctly
    I may have heard him wrong
    With time my memory may have changed what I heard
    Research may show that there are different understandings and he expressed one
    There may be no right answer
    And of course, the least likely, I might be totally wrong

This is called research before we even do research.  Each different option requires a different response.  You may find that it isn’t worth addressing.  If your wife is telling the story of how you met and you wonder what husband she is talking about then it might not be the most fruitful pursuit of truth.  If your boss is exaggerating the great job you did, let it go.  If someone claims it is their turn to take the last cookie, you might want to go to the mat on that.  

I guess the most important thing to do is to accept that you might be the one that is wrong, even if you don’t really believe it.  Pick your battles and your battlefields.  And remember that old bit of wisdom, “He who fights and runs away sometimes doesn’t make it.”

homo unius libri