The thing about arguments
When two people have a heated discussion about an issue, one of three things could be happening:
- One of them is wrong. At the moment, each of them are sure that the other person is the one who’s wrong.
- Neither of them is wrong. They’re arguing about something where right and wrong are relative, based on perspective. Or, perhaps…
- They’re both wrong.
The thing is, our certainty of rightness is what makes heated arguments heated. Given how unlikely it is that we’re always right and they’re always wrong, the heated part of the conversation is probably worth avoiding.
Before you can begin to work on what you disagree about, you each benefit from working on the ‘heated’ part.