We Were Both Right
A few friends and I were sitting beneath the shade of a large apple tree, escaping the afternoon heat and discussing a traffic accident that had happened the previous day.
One of them mentioned that a motorcyclist had died after crashing head-on into a car driven by an older woman. Apparently she crossed into the opposite lane for reasons nobody understood.
Naturally, the discussion immediately transformed into unofficial forensic investigation conducted by men holding coffee cups.
My friend shook his head and said:
“I’m not saying the woman wasn’t at fault, but these motorcyclists… they drive like lunatics. No wonder there are so many fatal accidents.”
And instantly, without even thinking properly, I reacted.
“No, wait a minute. Motorcyclists are often hard to notice. Older drivers lose reflexes, attention drops with age, maybe she simply didn’t see him…”
At that exact moment a memory flashed through my mind — a motorcyclist who once appeared beside my car on the highway almost out of nowhere. I was driving fairly fast myself, yet suddenly he was there, right beside my mirror like a teleporting insect in leather clothing.
Not because he was necessarily speeding crazily.
Simply because motorcycles are small, fast and surprisingly easy not to notice when your brain is busy with other things.
So technically I was defending the motorcyclist. But then, almost immediately, another thought appeared. Actually… my friend was not wrong either. So I stopped myself and corrected my tone.
“Yes… but motorcyclists also drive aggressively sometimes. You’re right too. Sorry, I interrupted you a bit sharply.”
The conversation moved on normally after that. Somebody mentioned road conditions. Somebody blamed modern traffic. Somebody eventually drifted toward talking about lawn mowers for reasons I still do not fully understand.
But my thoughts remained stuck somewhere else.
Why Did I Need To Contradict Him?
That question bothered me afterward. Why did I react so sharply in the first place?
Because when I looked at it calmly, we were both essentially describing different parts of the same reality.
Motorcyclists really are harder to notice. Older drivers really can lose reflexes. And yes, many motorcyclists also drive far too fast. All those things can be true simultaneously.
So why did I instinctively feel the need to oppose his statement as if we were on opposite sides of some intellectual battlefield?
The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
Sometimes people argue not because they disagree, but because they want their own version of the truth to stand in front of the other person’s version.
Even when both are basically saying the same thing.
The Ego Wants Ownership
I slowly realized something uncomfortable about myself.
Quite often in conversations, especially in the past, I was not only trying to express an opinion — I was trying to establish ownership over it. As if my version needed to win. Not because the other person was wrong, but because my ego wanted its own perspective to stand out separately and clearly.
Humans do this constantly. Someone says: “People are stressed because life is too fast.”
Another replies: “No, people are stressed because technology disconnected us from reality.”
Meanwhile both are describing different aspects of exactly the same problem. But instead of building the idea together, we instinctively split into positions and defend them like medieval territory disputes.
It is actually a little absurd when you notice it happening in real time.
Everyone Speaks From Their Own World
The older I get, the more I notice that most people speak from their own experiences, fears, knowledge, their own memories, and their own emotional filters.
And from that personal perspective, most people are usually at least partly right. Not completely right. Not universally right. But right within the boundaries of their own reality.
My friend sees reckless motorcyclists because perhaps those are the situations that stayed in his memory. I notice visibility problems because I experienced one myself. Someone else might focus on road design. Another on aging drivers. Another on alcohol. Another on poor training.
All of them may hold one piece of the same larger truth.
Arguments Are Often Just Ego Performing
Which made me wonder how many conflicts begin exactly this way.
Two people say almost the same thing, but because they phrase it differently, they begin opposing each other as if civilization itself depends on winning the discussion. And often what really drives the disagreement is not truth at all.
It is ego. The need to appear smarter, sharper, more experienced, morally superior, or simply more correct.
I think people often confuse conversation with competition. Especially men. A surprising number of male discussions quietly resemble deer fighting in a forest, except with more coffee and fewer antlers.
Maybe We Are All Right
By the end of the day one simple thought remained in my head: perhaps most people are, from their own perspective, actually right. Even when they appear wrong from somebody else’s viewpoint. At least up to a certain point.
Of course there are genuinely foolish opinions too. Reality still exists. Facts still matter. Driving blindfolded because astrology predicted positive energy is probably still a bad traffic strategy.
But in ordinary human conversations, many disagreements are not really battles between truth and falsehood. They are collisions between different partial truths. And maybe life becomes a little calmer once you realize that not every discussion needs a winner.
Sometimes two people can both be correct at the same time. Even if their egos are deeply disappointed by that conclusion.
Comments
Post a Comment