What I learned From Mindless Arguments: Cheatcodes to Win-Win
Boss doesn’t give you a raise? Burned that bridge?
I recently had an altercation with a friend about an opinion I found hard to digest.
It probably wasn’t the smartest decision I made. After all, one’s perspective is a result of what side of the argument brain-washed you first.
Needless to say, I unwittingly burned that bridge at the end of the argument. This flustered me more than a little, because “I was rational”, in my head. I then evaluated every argument I had. Turns out unsurprisingly, there is a pattern to how these end. In most cases, as rational as we consider ourselves, emotion is the only gasoline that drives an argument.
Consequently, I consulted a bunch of literature to see what I was doing wrong (and right). Some smart people and great thinkers have figured this out for the rest of us already. There is a whole of material out there. My take-aways from this :
- Minds are malleable but will resist the change unless it’s their idea (Or they believe it is).
- People can be as nice to you as you are to them despite major differences in opinion.
- Arguments don’t have to be a heated self-defeating emotional mess.
