"Mostly, when someone is arguing for their right to have an opinion, they are dealing with some demons that have surfaced from beliefs about the unworthiness of themselves.”

An aspect of our mind is that it places extreme amounts of survival value on the experience of simply being right. This isn't 'measurement right'. This is 'emotional right' or 'intellectual right.' Much of the content of our lives we built simply continues to serve to make us right, but does nothing to express our essence, that being joy and satisfaction. This is the auto-pilot, the programmed part of our mind. It functions much like a computer. It reacts to its environment from the context of survival.

'Being wrong' is soon experienced as a form of losing. And losing feels like being dominated. Being wrong means being dominated. Being dominated is one step short of being dead to the mind. 'Being right' to the mind has so much survival value that a human being will even sacrifice its physical survival in order to be right. We have a whole bunch of 'stuff' about being right. People actually kill themselves in a final grand statement of their righteousness. The entire world is made wrong in the one final action of suicide. Or sometimes a slow 'make wrong' is chosen throughout life, not enough to kill the immediate biological aspect of life, but certainly the spiritual or emotional aspect.

Loneliness is slow suicide.

Having the right stuff to survive

"Being right" about your 'stuff' carried to its extreme could be referred to as being delusional. Most people simply carry 'being right' about their ‘content of the mind’ to a level that creates great deals of drama and conflict in their relationships. "Nobody loves me." "People can't be trusted." "I never get what I want." "Everybody should like me." "I'm too old for that." Because its not carried to an extreme and everyone has ‘stuff,’ through careful, if unconscious filtering, it is possible for you to find people with similar 'stuff' and thus further insure that your 'stuff' is the right 'stuff'.

Birds of a feather do tend to flock together.

The purpose of this article is to begin to see what a terrific joke you play on yourself about your mind’s stuff. Your ‘stuff’ is a great joke. It is fun to have 'stuff'. It can only hurt us if we let it have us. Having your ‘stuff,’ or content of your mind, become less serious to you (the owner and builder) can be called enlightenment. Learning to lighten up about your ‘stuff’ is a quantum leap toward mastery.

This won't happen if you operate from the belief that you are your mind. You will need to be serious and defensive about your ‘stuff.’ It is common to assert, “If you question the validity or reality of my ‘stuff,’ you are questioning me.”

It may be worth the inquiry at the very least because people that know the untruth about their ‘stuff’ attract the most amazing results. Those who take themselves and others lightly are fun to be with! People want to be around them, because they not only know that their ‘stuff’ is unreal, but also that other people's ‘stuff’ is also as unreal. They don't make up more ‘stuff’ about your ‘stuff.’

The opposite experience is to be owned by your ‘stuff’ and believe your ‘stuff’ is really important, and absolutely the right stuff. How often has it been that you would rather be right than have a relationship succeed?

So where do we get all this stuff that we’re committed to being right about? The content of the mind includes beliefs, judgments, opinions, and positions.