Right vs Happy Finale

In my last two posts, I asserted that life always only provides you with two choices: you can either be right or you can be happy! Unfortunately, far too many people think that the way you get to be happy is by being right. It just doesn’t work that way. Whether you like it or not, or agree with it or not, those two choices are mutually exclusive.

From the responses I continue to receive, all of which want to argue my point with me, it’s clear that I still have not effectively explained my point. Since this is so very important, if you want to be happy, let me try one last time.

The problem stems from the fact that when we hear the word “right,” what we immediately assume is also there is the word “wrong.” And, in a world of right and wrong, surely there are things that are “wrong.” As one person wrote, if you shoot my 5 year old grandchild, while you might think it’s the “right” thing to do, it would clearly be “wrong.” Agreed!

But here’s what’s being missed. For those of you that are regular readers of this blog, or familiar with the Unshackled Leadership philosophy, you understand that human beings are really rather uncomplicated creatures. There are two, and only two voices that drive who we are and how we behave. The first is the voice of our higher consciousness and the other is the voice of our ego. The difference between the two voices is best explained by a story which appears on pages 108 and 109 of Unshackled Leadership:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside each of us. “One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.”

The point is that in the world of the ego, the former of the two, the world of fear, you’re over there, I’m over here, we’re separate and you’re the enemy. In that world, everything is either good or bad, win or lose, and right or wrong. In other words, right and wrong lives in the world of the ego.

In the world of your higher consciousness, the later of the two in the Cherokee Indian story, the world of peace and love, all appearances of separation are an illusion, we are to each other as one wave of the ocean is to another, and all there is is kindness, compassion, benevolence, etc. In that world, there simply is no right and wrong.

So when I say you can either be right or happy, that is simply a shorthand way of saying: which world do you want to live in, the world of the ego or the world of your higher consciousness, the world of fear or the world of love? Obviously, someone who would shoot your grandchild is living in the world of the ego. But don’t let an example like that rob you of choosing which world you will live in. And hopefully you can now understand why I say that those two worlds are mutually exclusive.

If you want to read the rest of the story, please go to http://www.unshackledleadership.com/ and get your copy of my book.