Will you join me in learning about the ability to be flexible and choose what we agree with and disagree with, and choose it in our own best interest because this is a powerful skill I've found for being happy and for having happy relationships with everyone around me?
Thank you for reading about day 190 of Happier People Podcast and I hope you enjoy it! ► Listen on DSound
Best and Worst Times to Agree and Disagree?
Now, some of us may be thinking that we don't have a choice of whether we agree and disagree. We may think that we just have to disagree in some situations and we just have to agree in others. What I found is that I have a choice always on what I agree and disagree with.
The question is, am I agreeing and disagreeing in my own best interest or am I actually doing it against my own best interest?
Now, this baffles me because what I've noticed in my life is a pattern of agreeing and disagreeing against my own best interest. This means agreeing at a time when it would be better for me to disagree and it means disagreeing when it actually caused me problems.
Let me give you some examples to make this clear. Here are two examples of when agreeing and disagreeing worked against me.
First, agreeing. I was at SteemFest 2. I was talking with someone there who was proceeding to lay down several different words like psychopath, needing to change and wrongs, and basically laying the "You're not good enough, something's wrong with you" shame opinion on me.
I proceeded to agree with that. I proceeded to say, "Yes. This is how I was in the past, I'm struggling with this and working to change on it."
What I've learned since then is that it is the time for me to disagree because anyone else's opinions about who I am or how I've been, those are up to someone else. That's essentially someone else's work of fiction. I have no need to agree or to disagree with anyone else's work of fiction, and in fact it's best I don't take one way or another on it, to just let people have their works of fiction and just maybe acknowledge that they said something, maybe not. There's no need to sit there and agree with someone.
When someone's gossiping that's often a really good time to disagree, and yet a lot of us end up agreeing just like I did because we feel like we should agree, that it is the right thing to do. We're afraid to stand up and say, "No. That is not how I see the world. That is not how I see myself and you are welcome to create whatever idea you want to of me and the world. That is not how I see it. Here's how I see it. I am a loving person. I am good enough. There is nothing wrong with me and there never has been."
The use of words like psychopaths, like shame of not being good enough, like something is wrong, these are judgments we lay down on other people out of a state of not feeling good enough ourselves.
A person who feels good enough has no need to go around and labeling their fellow man and woman as a psychopath, that something must be wrong with them because our inner world is what creates our outer world.
Now yes, there are things that we can agree on like there are planets, there are different physical laws. Sure, but how we see them and interpret them is a reflection of our inner world.
When we're in a good place we have no need to go around judging, condemning, and criticizing people. Everyone is welcome to their opinion and the best time for us to disagree is when someone lays down these negative judgments on us.
That's a really good time for us to say, "No. I am good enough. I am not a psychopath. There is not something wrong with me because I have a happy life today that I enjoy where I think of others and contribute. I will not accept those judgments on me today."
That is a good time to disagree.
That's a great time to disagree when the gossip and judgment is coming down on others. It is very rare someone gossips to me today because I don't agree with it.
When I hear another person going around and trying to talk to me and saying, "Hey, Jerry. Can you believe what he did and what he said?"
I don't agree with him. I don't go, "Oh, yeah. That's horrible."
I used to do that all the time. I don't do that today. Someone says, "Jerry, can you believe what he did?"
"Yes ,I can."
"Well, do you think that's right?"
"I don't know. I don't know."
It makes me not fun to gossip with because I won't agree with the gossip, therefore, people won't gossip.
When people know you won't gossip and won't agree with the negative judgments they laid on you, then you won't get them very often.
One of the big things I've just been learning over the last few months is that I have the choice always of what I agree and disagree with. It's in my best interest to agree with things when my heart truly agrees with them, when it helps me to agree with them.
It helps me when someone says, "You're good enough."
It helps me to agree, but a lot of us have a hard time agreeing in that situation. Ironically a lot of us have a hard time agreeing with kind and nice feedback.
Someone says, "You're doing a great job," and while on the surface we might agree, deep down we wish they'd take us down a peg or two. A lot of us are unconsciously agreeing with the nasty things people say about us and disagreeing with the nice things.
Once we see that we do that we have the chance to do something different.
So, the best times to agree and disagree are when people are laying down some kind of judgment on us. That's the best time to disagree.
When someone tries to lay down hurtful and nasty things on us or other people, that's a great time to disagree.
When someone tries to let us be loved, when someone tries to love us, that's a great time to agree.
Now, we go on the other side with disagreeing in our own worst interest. It's in our own worst interest to agree when someone tells us we're not good enough.
When someone says, "You've done a really crappy job on this. You're just an idiot."
That's the worst possible time to agree with someone.
That's the time to disagree, to say, "You know what? Perhaps I made a mistake. I've learned something out of this and that does not mean I'm an idiot. It does not mean I'm a bad person because I did that. I do not agree with your assessment that I am not good enough."
"I do not agree with your assessment or what you've shared, and at the same time, you're welcome to share whatever you want to. You're welcome to say whatever you want to about me. I am whatever you say I am. You're welcome to your opinion of me. You're welcome to your opinion of the rest of the world."
It is up to me whether I agree with that or not, and today I refuse to disagree and agree in my own worst interest because I'm the one who suffers over that. I'm the one who then has to live with that, and often what happens when we agree and disagree in our own worst interest, we get these resentments and anger that appear to be at someone else.
I felt resentful for the guy at SteemFest telling me that I'm not good enough, telling me what a psychopath I am, laying these judgments down. I got resentments that I thought were at him, but they were really at me.
I was ashamed I agreed with him. I was ashamed I didn't have the courage to say, "You know what, these are your opinions and you're welcome to them. I do not agree with them. That is not the world I see. The world I see is one full of love, joy and happiness. The world I see is me acting as a playful child thinking of everyone else, hoping to do good in the world. That's the world I see."
"I do not see a world where I am this evil psychopath who's trying to recover and be better today. I've always been and always will be perfectly created in my creator’s image. That means there's nothing wrong with me. I am as I'm supposed to be and therefore you are as you're supposed to be. Everyone else is as they are supposed to be."
Today I'm grateful that I've learned to agree in my own best interest because I used to disagree in my own worst interest frequently, but I didn't have the courage to disagree when it was in my best interest.
For example, my wife and her family were planning Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. They wanted it to be later in the evening and I was disagreeing with everyone in my own worst interest. I was saying it needed to be in the afternoon, that we needed to have Thanksgiving at 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. and that we couldn't be having it at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m.
That's an example of disagreeing in my own worst interest.
Why?
Because I was disagreeing in a way that did not gain me anything.
In fact, it was causing problems.
My family was uncomfortable with this. My adamant disagreement about what time Thanksgiving should be caused upset at the dinner conversation.
It was disagreeing in a way that didn't do any good and actually left me feeling not good enough. It left me feeling like I was causing problems, and what I did, thankfully, I looked at why I was arguing for that position.
What is my motivation to argue for having Thanksgiving at 1:00 p.m.?
I realized that when I grew up that's the most frequent time we had Thanksgiving, and I was arguing based on what I thought was right, based on just my own experience.
I realized that this was not useful in the face of new evidence, that it would be best for the family to have Thanksgiving at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. instead of 1:00 or 2:00 p.m.
I realized I was arguing and disagreeing in my own worst interest, that my arguing and disagreeing was needlessly causing me and everyone else problems, that literally all I had to do was just change my mind.
I had to just change my mind and say, "I agree. Let's have Thanksgiving at 1:00 p.m."
You see, I even defaulted to that!
"Let's have Thanksgiving at whatever time you feel is best."
And that's what I did just a few minutes, maybe an hour, after I started the argument that we shouldn't have Thanksgiving at 5:00 or 6:00p.m.
I literally just said, "Look, I'm sorry for arguing with you. I would love to have Thanksgiving and help out at whatever time is best for everyone."
BAM!
Argument's over.
No more problems. No more disagreement. No more discomfort.
BAM!
Done.
Now, a lot of us feel like we have to argue in those situations. A lot of us don't take the time to realize where our argument is coming from and a lot of us do argue then for things that just simply cause us trouble.
I've had a family member recently say that he wishes he could just agree with his wife like I do because often I will start out disagreeing with something my wife wants, and then I will simply change my mind because it's in my own best interest.
It doesn't do me any good to argue with my wife over something that is not in everyone's best interest. There's more than one way to do things for some things and sometimes my wife wants to do things one way, like have Thanksgiving a different time, and I want to do it another way.
It's in my own best interest.
When it's in my own best interest to change my mind and agree or disagree with something, then that's the time to do it. That is an extremely valuable skill, and not to do it superficially where then years later I'm berating my wife for having Thanksgiving at a time I didn't like, but to truly and completely change our minds in a way that suits us.
What I used to do is consistently agree and disagree in ways that caused me problems and I would change my mind in ways that consistently created problems for me and other people.
For example, I used to drink a lot of alcohol, and then what would happen is that I would cause so much trouble that then I would stop for a while.
I would say, "Okay, I'm not drinking anymore."
And then what would happen is one day I would change my mind on that position.
I'd say, "You know what? I wasn't that bad before. I'm going back to drinking."
We have this power, a divine power to change our minds, but a lot of us just end up using it unconsciously. We decide, "I'm going on a diet," and then all of a sudden we just decide to stop the diet and completely give up on trying to eat better and go back to eating just the crap that we used to, just stuffing our faces with things that have very little whole plant foods in them, eating all kinds of processed foods without regard to how that impacts the planet.
We change our mind on stuff that then leaves us feeling worse. The key is that we agree and disagree at the times when that matches what kind of world we want to create.
When I'm being presented with something with love, with peace, with happiness, with joy that's a good time to agree. That's in my best interest to agree then.
When I'm being presented with hate and judgment, that is a great time to disagree and to respect wherever it's coming from, to realize that this is another human being who has the right to make a world that they see, just as much as I have a right to make the world I see.
And yet, this other human being, I don't need to agree with what they're saying. I don't need to agree that this person's awful in the gossip or that I'm awful because of one thing or another. The question becomes then, why is it hard to do that?
What I'm saying sounds really easy, right?
Well, of course, Jerry.
Someone's going to come up to me and say, "You're a terrible person."
Then I'll obviously say, "No, I'm not."
Why is that hard?
Sure, if someone on the street comes up to us, even then it might be difficult when they ask us for money, then we say no or something like that, and then the person says, “Well, you're terrible,” in one way or another.
We often find ourselves nodding our head walking away.
"Yes. Yes. I am terrible. If I wasn't terrible I could have given that homeless man a couple of dollars. But he's right."
We end up getting frustrated at the homeless man for pointing it out. We don't stop to think that we just agreed with it, that we're nodding our heads. We instead disagree with what he said with our own processing of it.
We often just accept what other people say because we're afraid of being stuck up on the cross if everyone doesn't agree with us and think good things of us. We're literally being afraid of our fellows putting us in prison, killing us or doing some other kind of similar action like banishing us, firing us from our job, or divorcing us.
We often are afraid to stand up for what we really believe in because then we're vulnerable, right?
When people know what we really believe in, then we can really be hurt. A lot of us make up all these things to agree and disagree with that don't represent who we really are because then if someone disagrees with them, so what?
I think one of the worst places to spend a bunch of energy agreeing and disagreeing is in politics, and I'm sure someone reading that will say, "I don't agree with that."
That's fine.
I don't think it's helpful to put a bunch of time and energy into things that are far off.
For example, I was seeing my wife pregnant and seeing our first daughter born, and the idea of having a doctor go in and kill the baby before it's born seems just as awful as walking up and shooting someone on the street.
So you might say at the moment, I don't agree with the idea of abortion.
I used to passionately be in favor of it because I also was passionately in favor of killing people under the right circumstances. Meanwhile, I was terrified that people would decide, "You know what? He's the one. He's the bad one. He needs to be stuck up on the cross. He's the one that we really need to get rid of."
Today, in a place of love I realized that I need to pay attention to the issues that are impacting my life. My wife is not considering any kind of action like that and therefore what business do I have getting involved in other people's lives.
It's none of my business whether another couple or a woman somewhere else wants to terminate her pregnancy. That's not my business, even if I passionately think that it's just the same as killing a grown person. It's not my business to get in and tell other people what is right in their lives.
I don't know how that pregnancy came to exist. Maybe that was done against the woman's will. Maybe that occurred as an act of violence. Maybe bringing that child into the world is going to result in a mass murderer being raised out of not being loved and cared for.
I don't know what's going on with other people's lives. It's in my best interest to not get involved in other people's lives and say which things are globally right or wrong.
While I personally can't imagine agreeing to an abortion, if an act of violence happened to my wife and caused her to be pregnant, I might agree with an abortion in that case or I might not. The truth is I barely know what is right for me and am clueless about what is right for others.
When I realize all of the different view points, it's generally not in my best interest to try to oppress them on other people, to say, "Well, I think today abortion is right or wrong," because at various days in my life I've had completely opposite view points.
If 25-year-old me had forced 33-year-old me to agree, my past self would literally be oppressing my present self. The way I used to think would literally be oppressing how I am now, and that's what we do to other people. Therefore, it's often in our best interest to stick to agreeing and disagreeing with things that are going on around us rather than what someone in a different part of the country might be doing.
This even happens when there are tragedies or things to celebrate, when there's an awards show or an awful story on the news, often it's in our best interest to stay out of those things.
I used to get into these passionate political debates. I'd say, "Social Security is horrible. It's draining our country. We should get rid of it. People just sucking us dry getting Social Security."
I used to say things like that. Of course, I often was only arguing from some view point I got somewhere else and I was simply passing it along.
Have you heard an argument that sounds canned, coming from a friend or a family member? What's really funny is to catch a canned argument coming from my own mouth. It's like I'm pitching for someone else's party.
Wait a minute. Why am I arguing for this? I'm literally pitching someone else's canned presentation I agreed with. A lot of the arguments, debates and fights we get in are for pitching things that we've got no business even talking about because they don't relate to us.
I have no business telling anyone anywhere what should be done with their body. I have no business deciding who should get married. I have no business deciding who should have an abortion. I have no business deciding who should get executed or who should be in prison.
Why?
Because these are other people's works of art essentially. Now, sure, I have views. I think we're better off as a human race not putting people in prison. I think we're better off not murdering people.
That said, I don't know what goes on everywhere in every circumstance, and I don't understand sometimes how having tragedies happen can actually lead to a lot of good things happen too.
I used to spend a bunch of my energy agreeing and disagreeing with all these far-off ideas, and then what happened is I didn't have the choice to choose what I agreed and disagreed with when it mattered.
I burned out all my energy talking about who should be President, I burned out all my energy debating on things that had no relevance to my day-to-day life, then when someone came along and said, "You're wrong and you're not good enough," then I had no energy left to disagree.
Because when someone comes along and drops one of those anvils on us of shame, "Jerry you're not good enough. You don't fit into this world. You're not a good person. You're a psychopath who goes around acting like you care about people but really you don't."
I need to have my full energy reserves ready to disagree with something like that because when I agree to things like that it's devastating for my day-to-day happiness.
When I agree with something like that, I have to run this rat race to try to prove wrong. It's very hard once you've agreed with something to consciously change that and to say, "You know what? No. I don't agree with that I'm an awful person. I don't agree with that I'm wrong. I don't agree with that I'm some psychopath trying to take advantage of people. I don't agree with that."
It takes a lot of energy to essentially create a new reality. A lot of us we just unconsciously agree with things, and then we end up resenting them later. We don't realize that we consented to that view point. We, at some point agreed to it being like that. We're really arguing and spending all this energy then, trying to fight with ourselves.
I realize that other people create whatever they want. It's up to me what I agree with and I have a limited amount of energy and willpower every day. If I spend my limited amount of energy and willpower foolishly, I then am vulnerable to end up arguing against my own best interest.
I'm vulnerable to arbitrarily picking a Thanksgiving dinner time and creating an argument in my family when that's not good for anyone. I'm vulnerable to blindly agreeing with someone else's negative assessment of me or the world. It's not all about me.
When someone else comes along and says, "Jerry, this is a world full of hateful, disgusting people. This is a world full of evil people who need to be punished."
That's just as important for me to disagree with as it is for whatever the person has laid down upon me. It's important I have energy then to stand up and say, "You know what? I think this is a world full of beautiful, loving little babies who've grown up. I think this is a world full of God's angels. I think this is a world where even the bad things that happen are part of the greater good."
That's the world I see.
I used to see a world full of evil, bad people who needed to be punished, and I didn't have the energy or courage to stand up to that. I didn't realize I had a choice. When someone came around and said this person's filthy and disgusting, I have a choice to say "I don't agree with that. "
Today, I disagree when any person is condemned or put down. When any person comes to me and says, "This person is horrible and awful."
I disagree.
Every person is a beautiful perfect creation from God. That's how I see it because when I see other people that way, that's how I see myself. In fact, a disagreement is what makes life fun. If we all agreed it would be deathly boring.
Can you imagine a world where everything we said, everyone agreed with us? Can you imagine a world where everyone who read this post or watched this video said, "Jerry's right. Jerry's right. Jerry's right. Yes, whatever Jerry says we agree with."
Just thinking of that brings out this fear that what's really going to happen, everyone's going to flip and turn, and all of a sudden everything I do is wrong.
It's having a healthy disagreement that helps us have a more open-minded view of the world. When everyone around us thinks how we think, when everyone around us blindly agrees with all our good and bad ideas, then the world is not only no fun, the world is a scary place because we're always looking for that other side.
Our mind wants to have a world that's balanced, that has yes and no, that has up and down. Our mind is looking and expecting a world of separation, and when we see the yin and the yang in the world, there's this comfort that we're in a whole world, that the yin and the yang together make up a whole circle, a whole world.
I'm grateful today, I see that I have choices in what I agree and disagree with. I see that it's in my own best interest to agree with the things that are really how I see the world and are the world I want to live in, and it's in my own best interest to disagree with things that don't make the world I want to make, to disagree with hate.
Not to disagree that it exists, but when it's presented to me, "Jerry will you hate this person with me?"
No. I will not hate this person with you.
"Jerry, will you hate these people?"
No. I will not hate these people with you.
I will sit over here and love all of you.
Thank you for giving me the chance to love you today.
I hope this day 190 of Happier People Podcast was helpful.
Final words
Thank you for reading this post, which was originally filmed as the video below.
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Love,
Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk on the transcript from @deniskj
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