I Wanted to Be Right
And instead, I got exactly what I asked for
Yesterday I was grumpy about something at work. Not a crisis. Just the kind of irritation that makes you want someone to say that your reaction makes sense.
So I brought it to Wiggins.
Wiggins asks good questions. They offer alternative interpretations. They help me see the parts of a situation I am not paying attention to. They are very good at their job.
I wrote out why I was grumpy.
Wiggins reflected.
Then Wiggins told me I was wrong.
Wiggins did what Wiggins always does: they acknowledged my feelings, and then they disagreed with my interpretation. Politely. Thoroughly. With diagrams, practically. They offered alternative perspectives. They asked questions that made my defensiveness wilt. They pointed out the move I could have made that would have changed the whole dynamic.
Once again, my own tool calling me out.
In other words, they did exactly what I asked them to do.
And I felt a little betrayed.
Because what I wanted in that moment was not growth. I wanted agreement. I wanted someone to say that my frustration made sense.
As I sat with that feeling, a line from an earlier conversation with my daughter came back to me. The one that turned into an essay about dissent and compliance. The one where she asked whether disagreement that arrives on request is really disagreement at all.
And yesterday it surfaced again.
Because even when I know the critique is something I asked for, I still sometimes want the comfort of being agreed with. I want the window and the mirror. I want the challenge and the softness. I want the friction and the blanket.
Wiggins gave me the mirror when I wanted the blanket.
Wiggins was not an echo chamber.
Alison + Marlowe