One day when I was in high school, I was walking down the sidewalk with my mother.
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We needed to get to the other side of the street but since I was a punk teenager, I decided to cross sooner because figured I could make it before the next car went by.
My mother grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“What are you doing? There are cars coming”, said my mother.
“Mom, Pedestrians have the right of way.”
She looked at me and said, “Yeah and you’ll be DEAD RIGHT”
We are often dead right in our daily lives.
We might get our way. We might prove we are smarter than someone else but at what cost? We might be right but we may be dead right.
I once worked for some very egotistical people that were not doing things very efficiently, or effectively.
I brought this to their attention. I was right. Completely right.
But I was DEAD RIGHT … and soon to be, unemployed.
Being right isn’t always as important as doing what’s right. Being intelligent isn’t as important as having wisdom.
For those of us that are married, we’ve probably already discovered this the hard way.
Just because someone does things differently or has a different opinion than us doesn’t mean that they are wrong.
There’s a quote that says, “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. But wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
If my mother was a philosopher back on that day on the sidewalk, she might have said, “Knowledge is knowing that it’s a one-way street but wisdom is still looking both ways before you cross.”
Don’t be right if it means you’ll be DEAD RIGHT.