Is it better to be right or kind?

A great majority of the time I come down on the side of being kind. Propellant tend to remember what you said but they will always remember how they felt around you.

It is better to be right. You cannot trust people who think it is better to be kind.

Situation dependant. Sometimes being right is more important and sometimes it's being kind.

I agree with TheSadGirl, totally depends on the situation.

I agree with the above two posters. It totally depends on the situation, so it's hard to say either way.

It depends on the situation, yes. If, at the hospital for example, I'm standing next to my colleague who is about to make an error, darn straight it's better for me to be right than kind (i.e. not embarrass them) in that situation.

"People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel," is a famous quote by H. Jackson Brown Jr. which has been incorrectly attributed to Maya Angelou. Anyway, it holds water; as time passes, do we remember the minutiae of our relationships with other people? I sure don't. But I do remember how I felt when I was around them, and that determines if I want to keep being around them or not.

I have an awful tendency to want to be "right"

Both are equally important.
But out of the two, for me kindness is a constant.
I'd rather be stupid, than heartless.

To me no one knows what's right half the time anyway so it's better to be kind. It's more peaceful.

I don’t really care about being right in general. I’ll say my piece and if people don’t listen it’s their loss.

But, I’m not really all that kind in general too. Hmmmm

But, I’ll go with it’s more important to me to be kind than right, unless the situation that calls for being right is very important, where someone will get hurt, for example.

What? That’s a sentence to take to a therapist!

My own thoughts are that it depends on what it is about. Are you going to tell a 2 year old when she falls and scrapes her knee, (get over it, it won't be the first time you get hurt in your life) or are you going to tell that 2 year old that (it will all be better, and brush her off, and fix her boboo)?

The truth is important. Sometimes the truth is painful so it's best to be kind.

For me it comes down to whether or not the other has crossed my principles.

Really? You say here that you'd rather be kind than right. But you think it is fair to take a shot at me at an attempt to be mean when you know you are wrong.

Someone asked a black and white question. I gave a black and white answer. I'd rather have people be honest to me than people that try to tell me what they think I want to hear.

Being 'kind' is so superficial. And being right carried both being factually right and being morally right.

But I do agree with the sentiment of people here. If you pick truth and wisdom over white lies, you are going to suffer for your virtuousness.

One reason why at least my therapist wasn't constructive is because she was too concerned with being kind. If you leave your therapist more down than when you go there, you will stop going. And being more happy leaving a therapist doesn't say anything about how much you learned on how to solve the issues you have. If she was being right she would say 'I have no clue what to do to actually help you'. Part because little seemed wrong with me and part because the things that were 'wrong' with me were not fixable. Basically all she ever told me was 'go to a bar with people with autism', even though I don't have autism. 'Try online dating' even though any person I talk with online leaves me cold and 'At some point you have to accept who you are'. And a whole bunch of other stuff about how me judging motivations of other people hopelessly failed because I assumed their intentions were honest and rational, when in fact she told me most actions were motivated by their own insecurities.

I could also instantly tell when she was ********ting to follow her professional protocol or to make me feel more comfortable.

But this shows the silliness of the questions. I know you are trying to start a grudge with me, so I'll stop here.

Tallthibius— I was not trying to fight with you at all. Why you would say you do not trust someone who would rather be kind baffled me. I am sorry I worded it in an antagonistic way.

Honestly, I didn’t think about the question so deeply.

I felt ‘would you rather be right?’ Meant ‘would you want people to acknowledge that you are right?’ And I didn’t think that being kind meant that you were not right, as it was being compared to being right. I didn’t take it to mean being kind but being phony and not being right.

This is why I did so lousy on the SATs.

Kindness comes from the heart and we should always go with our gut feelings, whether right or wrong-just saying. Sometimes we think we are right and we're wrong so being kind would be better.

See, I wasn’t right and I was kind about it.

Hmm, the way I took it was this:

Some people have a tendency to want to be correct, and this causes them to correct other people in their grammar, to come off as know-it-alls in conversation, etc. Being kind in those situations would be to keep one's corrections and such to oneself.

I didn't think it was as deep as being a moralistic question.