Right

I don’t remember what my brother Clayton and I were fighting about.  I was probably 10 which would have made Clayton 7.  We were riding with my mom in the car on our way to get our hair cut and we started arguing.  It was probably a typical argument about Clayton getting to ride in the front seat while I was forced to ride in the lowly back seat.  Normally we would have a little squabble and then order would be restored.  This time, however, I decided that I would escalate the situation and keep it up all the way there.

As we turned into the chipped parking lot of the fading metal building that housed the salon, my mom stopped the car just short of the parking space and began to speak in the “mom voice.”  We have all had that experience before: Mom starts talking to you and her words are enunciated more clearly than ever before.  She pauses briefly between each word to add emphasis as her eyes quickly dart between the two warring siblings.

I realized at that moment that I had crossed that line of acceptable complaining about a mile back as we passed the McDonald’s on Raeford Rd across the street from the Blockbuster and Food Lion.  I knew that I was in big trouble and that my mom was as mad as I have ever seen her.  The only saving grace in my situation was that we were about to walk into the salon and I wouldn’t get a spanking until we got home.  Little did I know that I was going to make a tremendous error in the next 15 seconds.

We all like to be right don’t we?  We go to school and we try to get the right answer on tests.  We go to church and we try to live the right way.  We try to work hard and do the right things to get promoted.  And we try to do the right things as parents and spouses.  In fact many of us would probably say we spend a lot of time trying to be right.  Therefore, it may come as a shock to some of you that I believe there are some times in life that it is better not to be right.

Yes, most of the time you want to be right, but sometimes its better to let some things just slide on by.  I make my living by telling stories and I happen to believe I am a pretty good story teller.  My wife, Courtney, is not a professional storyteller, but she is asked to tell stories about things that happen in her life.  She has a great take on life and some really fun experiences to share and I love to watch her tell stories.

In my eyes, however, she sometimes doesn’t tell the stories quite right.  She tells some parts in a confusing order, or adds too much detail in one area while leaving out good detail in another.  Sometimes she forgets the point of the story, and sometimes I cringe as she gives away the punchline before providing enough context to make it funny.

I also made the mistake once of telling her that I would love to help her tell stories better.  I was right: Courtney doesn’t always tell stories the best way.  But this is an example of a time in which it would have been better for me to keep my mouth shut and not be right.  “Austin,” Courtney said, “I don’t care how I tell stories and I don’t care if they are perfect or not.  They are my stories and I will tell them however I want to tell them.”  This was a situation where she was exactly right and I deserved to hear it.  Sometimes you shouldn’t be right.

As we got out of the car that afternoon back in 1991, my mother quickly walked down the sidewalk as Clayton and I shuffled along as guilty boys do.  Just as my mother was opening the door to the salon one of her good friends from church was coming out to go home.  In a flash, my mothers facial expression changed from anger to joy as she greeted her friend.  The friend asked, “How are you doing?”  And my mother repliled, “We are doing good!”

I didn’t think before I interrupted, “No we aren’t.  My mom was just yelling at us in the car and now all of a sudden she has a smile on her face.”

The air was sucked out of the universe at that instant.  Even my 7 year old little brother knew that aside from saying crap, fart, or a cuss word this was the worst thing I could have said in the whole world.  I was right, 100% right.  We were not okay and my mom was mad at us.  I was only 10 years old and when you are 10 you don’t realize that you don’t air out your dirty laundry to your friends and I also hadn’t learned that you don’t always have to be right.

So, I have learned that sometimes its okay to just keep my mouth shut, even when I am right.