HUMAN CONNECTION

Beyond Winning

Choosing connection over being right

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You know that feeling when you’re mid-argument, fists clenched (literally or metaphorically), and your brain’s already scripting that killer line you know will end it? The one that’ll make them go, “Oh. Yeah. Huh.”?

I’ve been there. We all have. It’s like this primal urge to be the last voice standing.

But what if we stopped treating conversations like boxing matches? What if, instead of loading our next “gotcha”, we just… paused? Not to surrender, not to roll over, but to wonder, why does this matter so much to them?

I tried it once during a spectacular clash with my wife over — wait for it — weekend plans.

She wanted to drive across town to her parents’ place for the third Sunday in a row. And I wanted to literally melt into the couch and watch cricket in peace. “Why can’t we just stay home?!” I groaned. She shot back: “You never want to spend time with my family!” Code red. Sirens blaring.

I was this close to pulling up my Google Maps history to “prove” how often we’d visited (petty? Yes. Effective? Never). But instead, I choked down my chai and mumbled, “Why is this so important to you this week?”