“It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path,

but it’s another to think yours is the only path.”

― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

What is it with the need to take our subjective experience and decide it’s the objective truth?

Why do we feel such a need to ensure that our way is the only way?

Why do we need to convince everyone else of our opinion and then ensure that they not only agree, but join us in that opinion?

What is it with the need to be right?

Why can’t we make decisions for ourselves and ourselves alone?

Why do we feel compelled to foist something that works for us, onto someone else, so smug in our certitude that it must be right for them too?

We all seem to do this to some degree.

Take, for instance, apples…

I like apples and decide that you have to love them too.

What?! You don’t like apples? How is that possible? Perhaps you’ve never tried the particular type of apple that I always enjoy? Maybe you just need them prepared differently? Then again, it’s just possible, that you’re an inferior being for not recognizing the incredible taste and value in a good apple. If you were smarter you’d be grabbing apples every day…like me. Don’t you know they’re good for you? Don’t you know that I’ve enjoyed them for years? Shouldn’t you too? Haven’t you read the studies? Don’t you realize apples could be your salvation?

Of course, you can substitute anything you like for the word apple.

And then…

you can go to war over it.