Raspberry Iced M

I’m a paralegal. A really good one.

And that’s not me tooting my own horn. That’s backed with accolades from higher ups and a salary to match.

(That also does not make me special or ungrateful for the position I’ve been given, or the workload therein. I am humble every time my direct deposit hits, and not only am I thankful to my superiors for seeing something in me I probably wouldn’t have seen in myself, but I am also thankful to the Most High for the opportunity and challenges given to me as a result of His gifting me this career.)

Being a paralegal often means digging. Fact-finding. Searching for the golden nugget technicality that will win the case. Being as vague as possible when under discoverable scrutiny. And also extraordinarily articulate when defending your position in your cases.

And I think I am good at my job, in part, because I’ve always been good at finding the golden nuggets in my personal life. I’ve always made mental notes of others’ behavior in case that behavior turned into a pattern which then turned into a definition of character, so that when a disagreement came up outside of a professional setting, I had already analyzed the facts, and I was already prepared for a three-point speech on why they were wrong, why I was right. And for free, I could offer them “advice” they didn’t ask for.

Slideshow not included.

I used to call all of that a job hazard. And there have been several seasons throughout my life – while coparenting, or during one of my marriages (yes, you read that right), or dealing with a child, or one of my own parents, or cashier, or mechanic – when being right felt urgent.

Not casually right. Not quietly informed.

I mean proven right.

Documented. Footnoted. Backed by examples and screenshots and first-hand experience.

If I could just lay out the logic clearly enough…
If I could cite enough evidence…
Then surely the truth would land.

Surely people would understand. And if they understood, I would feel validated. Vindicated. Settled. Safe.

But in the last 8 months or so, I have learned a different valuable lesson:

Winning the argument rarely won me peace.

Being right feels powerful. It feels like moral clarity. Justice. Competence.

And sometimes, it absolutely matters.

But if I’m honest, most of those moments weren’t really about the “truth.” They were about proving. Correcting. Standing on a soapbox of self-righteous certainty and saying, “See? I told you.“

And that felt strong in those moments.

But that also left people scorched. That also left me exhausted, in a state of overthinking, even after I had proven my points. Even after I had gotten my way. Even after the other party conceded.

I heard someone say once, “You never want to win the argument.”

Oh, so true.

Because you can win the argument and lose the room.

You can present airtight reasoning and fracture the relationship.

You can be technically correct and emotionally careless.

And slowly, I started to notice something: The aftertaste of being right is not nearly as satisfying as I once expected.

I need to be very clear – I am 38 years old. I’m not young. I’m not inexperienced.

But I am changing. Twenty years of being an adult and having all of the responsibilities therein, I have recently started asking myself a totally different question.

Instead of “How do I prove this?” I began asking, “What does this person need right now?“

Sometimes, they didn’t need evidence. Sometimes they just needed to be heard.

Sometimes they weren’t wrong. They were just shaped by different experiences.

And sometimes extending grace would’ve done more for the relationship than winning ever could’ve.

Because the cost of being right is sometimes good terms. It’s open communication. It’s a whole friendship or loved-one-ship that I valued.

Now, I am learning that I can know I’m right, on paper, and I can also choose to fill a need. I can hold my ground internally without turning heated conversations into a courtroom. And I can step down from that soapbox long enough to hear people, especially if it means preserving someone else’s dignity, finances, tears, struggles, or even peace.

The things I once thought were a big deal – the contentious moments over which I have lost sleep – the over-analyzation of text messages, emails, social media posts – the disagreements, whether actual or anticipated, are not worth (1) my temporary sanity; (2) the loss of a relationship; or most importantly (3) the grace that the Lord has instructed all of us to give.

Giving grace, to me, is not optional. And I don’t get to pick and choose the people who deserve my grace, because God doesn’t treat me that way when I mess up.

The goal should always be the same. “Rightness” and “truth” and “evidentiary support” – all the screenshots and case precedence in the world do not matter without the right motive.

And more often than not, in the past, my motive was to prove my point, grace be damned.

Facts delivered without kindness often becomes a weapon.

Everyone is operating under something – their upbringing, their trauma, their fears, their pride, their insecurities, their blind spots, others’ perception of them, their egos.

Just. Like. Me.

Being right focuses on the argument.
Grace focuses on the human.

And ten times out of ten, the human matters more.

So my goal has shifted from being correct to preserving connection. It’s to understand why someone thinks the way he/she thinks. It’s to meet needs instead of satisfying my own ego.

There will always be moments where truth must be spoken firmly. And grace is not passivity.

But I no longer measure my own strength by how effectively I can dismantle someone’s position on any topic. Instead, I measure it by how calmly I can hold mine while still seeing theirs.

And I’ve found that extending grace – especially when I could beat the “right” into the other person – is absolutely the stronger move.

And that’s because the world will not remember me for being right, but it will remember that I was kind.