The Close Minded People and Validation Dicotomy

Never seek validation from convincing someone of a belief they refuse to hold. Rather, seek validation from the ideal presentation of arguments and do not rely upon the outcome to determine if you should be validated.

What the fuck does this mean? Often times people seek to logically convince others of their own beliefs. The advocates often subtly believe that if they can convince their opponents of a particular idea, then the advocate will have done his job. In other words, people think “When I convince him of idea X, it will make me feel better and will show that I’m a better person.”

This thought process is a recipe for failure and frustration.

So, for work, I have this project that I’m working on and there’s this other guy in another company that we sort of have to work with and against at the same time. Put simply, I have my ideas of what his right (which are supported by my opponents own facts) and my opponent has his own ideas which make absolutely no sense. Needless to say, I’m immensely frustrated. We recently presented to a neutral decision maker and I pointed out the inaccuracies of my opponent’s arguments and cited the necessary information.

All this time, I kept thinking “if I can just convince him (my opponent) that he’s wrong, it will show that I’m right, which (although at the time I didn’t quite realize it) will validate me.”

At the end of the day I went home frustrated and confused—although no decision or inclination of one had been made.

Sitting in bed I realized that I’ll never be able to convince my opponent that he was wrong. Even if the neutral decision maker completely sides with me, my opponent will not change his beliefs.

This made me question why am I seeking to validate myself and prove my skills by doing the impossible?

It’s like the kid said in The Matrix, “Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth. . . . There is no spoon.” I’ve been trying to bend the spoon, while I should have just been trying to realize the truth.

Seek validation from presenting and arguing in the best possible way, from convincing the real decision makers that you are right, and from leaving your blinded opponents on the side with their own ideas intact.