“I am not arguing, I’m just explaining why I am right.”

I read this quote recently, and it made me smile. It also brought up a long ago conversation with a student of mine.

This girl was a senior and absolutely convinced she had learned everything she would need to know in life.

I had her in two classes, creative writing and a literature class, and I thought surely I could find some way through one of these courses to show her there just be might be even more to life than she thought and much more to learn.

Have you ever known anybody like her?

I learned early on if you try to change their opinion, forget it. Often it only makes them more determined to prove their “rightness.” Just like the quote asserts.

There are several ways of handling this, but my favorite is to just let them go on and on until they see you are not buying it or trying to change them, and  things hit a wall.

What do you say to silence?

One of the worse topics for this dilemma is politics. Though, I have never seen anyone change parties or even major views because of someone stomping and all wound up to attack. Let them talk.

Then what about religion? Now, you can get into being judgmental or holier than thou and that is a trap. Don’t fall in it.

Whereas, with politics, usually people have long-standing beliefs and ideas.

Either that or when a new generation starts getting into a religion, they pretty much rebel against any traditional or organized religion.

Both of these are subjects I try to avoid, especially if it’s with family. I have seen families absolutely disintegrate over both.

If you do try to persuade an “always righter,” I stress you do it gently and without malice. Now, that is almost impossible sometimes, but I have seen it work with a religious split.

I know a couple that has life-long differences. The man was Jewish and the wife was conservative Christian. Both thought it simply couldn’t work out.

However, with children involved, decisions had to be made and implemented. They went to counseling. Both were honest and loving. No accusations were ever allowed and they didn’t raise a negative debate.

The counselor came back to the fact that it was better to be loving and preserve a marriage than to force a win.

The end result was the husband decided with all his heart he wanted to share a spiritual life with his wife more than he wanted to her to adopt his beliefs. From that time on, he and their children went to her church with her.

Because of his love and his desire to worship together, she then found a more open-minded church. She found an amazing similarity between the goals and beliefs of his own church.

I love this story because the man is Gene and I am his wife and we worshipped together until he died.

As far as these “always righters,” I ran into them in my classroom. The main thing I can say is I had to be 100 percent sure of my own point.

I could prove myself, however, I never ever did it highhandedly and I never made the student feel stupid or wrong.  I just tried to share a better way and leave it at that.

The truth is I don’t particularly like being around people who are always so sure they’re right. Maybe it is because I am not very competitive except with myself. I have always felt winning the argument is not the best feeling sometimes.

In fact, I find that if I open up and listen to the other guy, it just might shed light on what I have believed.

Now if your “always righter” does his point of view with anger and without any room for compromise, I suggest you simply realize this fact and not even talk about your own beliefs or ideas. You admit to yourself it’s a dead end street and either change the subject or walk away.

So the saying, “I’m not arguing. I’m just explaining why I am right” might be reexamined and maybe even make you smile.

The view from the mountain is wondrous.

Jean Brody is a passionate animal lover and mother. She previously lived in Winchester, but now resides in Littleton, Colorado. Her column has appeared in the Sun for more than 25 years.