"YOU ARE WRONG"

It doesn’t take much to send some people over the edge.

For me, it’s when people ask what kind of cookie you want - as if there is anything besides chocolate-chip cookies.

Someone I know has an almost psychotic response if you hold your hand up to him in a “stop” motion - I still don’t know entirely why.

(No, forget the ‘almost’ - it is completely psychotic)

But there is something that no one ever likes to hear - “You are wrong”

It has taken me decades to accept the pure and simple fact that no one ever changes their mind by simply being told, “You’re wrong.”

There is a very natural human reaction when you are hit to hit back - probably one of the reasons Christ mentioned turning the other cheek, because it takes a very conscious effort to not retaliate.

I have a poster of a cartoon character completely losing it -- just to remind me how people will punch back emotionally (and sometimes physically) if they feel threatened -- even if you don’t mean it as anything like a menace.

And there must be someone in the world who can hear, “You’re wrong” and calmly and politely answer, “Why, if you say so, I must be wrong.”

But I haven’t met them.

Yet.