Winning an argument

What’s the point of winning an argument in which nothing actually changes? Just to be able to say “I won!” Ok, so what? Do you really win if nothing actually changes as a result?

We don’t have the ability to change other people. If and when a person changes a belief or behavior, it is because they ultimately decided to make that change. We may have had some influence on that. We may have provided what they needed to help them make the decision to change. But for the most part, people change based on their own decisions. Yes, I know there are people who do things differently because someone in authority over them tells them to do it. But even in that situation, they can choose not to — which would probably require them finding another job, or enduring some kind of punishment. But even then, just because you do something you are told you have to do, doesn’t mean that you actually have changed your belief about it.

The actual power that any of us have is in changing how we see other people and ourselves. It’s the decision making power that we all have. And in so doing, maybe, just maybe, the other will start to see us differently too. But how others respond is up to them.

Maybe, just maybe, the other will start to see that there is a different way to engage in conversation and interaction with us and others. Maybe they will see that not every conversation is an existential battle of good and evil, right and wrong, who is in and who is out, us and them.