Glad you do not agree

Do you ever get frustrated when someone doesn't share your point of view? You think to yourself, if only everyone thought like I do, life would be so much easier.

 What if everything was hot, but there was no such thing as cold? What if there was only light and no darkness? What if all evil everywhere just disappeared?

Without their opposites, all of these things would lose most of their meaning. One would probably not appreciate hot chocolate as much if there were no cold days on which to drink it. With only light and no darkness, there could be no shadows. Things such as fireworks that are done after the sun goes down would lose much of their splendor. We would never see the stars at night. If evil disappeared those who are good would have to oppose neutrality instead. It would certainly throw many religions into chaos.

And if everyone had the same point of view life would be lackluster and bland. There would be no need to ever explain things to anyone else. We would all dress the same way, eat the same foods think the same things. Advertising would become irrelevant and every business that did not exactly match our ONE opinion would fail. For all intents and purposes we would be clones, living in different bodies.

Our lives need contrast. In order to appreciate beautiful things we need ugliness in our lives as well. To fully appreciate wealth, we need to experience poverty. To better enjoy foods that we do like, there need to be foods that we do not.

While watching a movie the other day I heard an example that I really like. I don't remember what movie it was, but a man was describing an organization that he was part of. And the way they had things set up, if nine out of their group of ten men agreed with one another, it was the tenth man's job to disagree. He was required to fight for the opposite opinion and resist as logically and strongly as he could. He had to do his best to sway as many of the others as possible to his view point. This way every decision was weighed quite heavily and they only agreed to do things that they felt very strongly about and only after their belief was tested

There is an old saying that goes, when two partners always agree, one is not necessary. That is certainly true on TV isn't it? On shows like America's Got Talent, if all of the judges felt the same way, they wouldn't need three of them. How about talk shows like The View that have multiple people with different opinions. What makes the show interesting is often seeing things from each person's perspective.

Besides, every time there is a difference in point of view, there is potential for growth, for learning something new. In fact, this is the only time when learning, or an increase in knowledge can occur and only if one or both parties are open to the possibility of being wrong.

If you and I both believe mutually exclusive facts about something, one or both of us has to be wrong. The fun part becomes figuring out who gets to be the teacher and who the student.

Perhaps it would be of more use to ask yourself not why the other person does not share your viewpoint, but instead ask why that fact frustrates you.

Is this difference of opinion likely to cause physical harm? Is the frustration a matter of ego or need to be right? Is not sharing the same point of view on this likely to damage your relationship with that person? Do you think they are just disagreeing with you to be contrary?