Take a moment to learn and be thankful for it

When political conversations come up, they often become angry, harsh and leave people with bitter tastes in their mouths.

Sometimes that is because you just can't understand why the other person would think the way he or she does. However, sometimes it is because you see a rational point in the other person's argument and don't know how to respond.

Dennis Prager segmented out Republicans versus Democrats in the argument that when conservatives find something wrong in their argument, they are happy instead of angry, because they want to fix it. I would use the example that my mother-in-law posted a meme on Facebook that said Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were in favor of 36-week abortions, which a leftist relative pointed out was a false accusation. At that point, conservatives are usually happy to take down the meme and fix it. If the opposite was the case, the expected reaction would be that leftists would instead get mad and shout back.

This is obviously a generalization on Prager's part. Not all conservatives are happy to fix mistakes, and not all leftists are angry and obnoxious about mistakes being pointed out.

I think it's better to look on this as a moral point rather than a political one. It doesn't matter what side politically you're on when you think about how you react to someone pointing out an error in your thinking.

When someone rationally says that something you thought to be true is actually incorrect, and can prove in with facts and not opinion, how do you react? Are you upset and stick to your guns, even when you realize that you are, in fact, wrong? Or are you grateful that you can now fix the error for the future.

What about when it is something you have done? When you make a mistake at work, do you own up to it and try to fix it for the future or do you get mad and try to blame what happened on circumstances or something else?

I think it's important that, as hard as it is, we all take responsibility for our beliefs, our actions, our words. When we are legitimately wrong, it's important that we are grateful to find out our faults so we can fix them and not be obstinate in our wrong-doing or wrong-believing.

If we all were a little more open to realizing that we are human and capable of wrong, our pride wouldn't get so much in the way. We could make ourselves and the world around us better if we took moments to learn instead of moments to get mad.