I want to write about a small piece of internal arithmetic that I have, in the last few years, started running about arguments, and that has, in some real way, changed how I conduct most of the disagreements in my adult life.
The arithmetic is this. The argument is not, in any meaningful sense, over when the other person admits I was right. The argument is over when I stop needing them to admit it. The two moments can, in principle, occur at the same time. In practice, they almost never do. The first moment, in most adult arguments, never occurs at all. The other person does not, in most cases, admit I was right. The second moment, however, is entirely within my own control. I can produce it. The producing of it is, on close examination, what actually ends the argument, regardless of what the other person ever decides to say.
I want to be careful here, because the arithmetic I am describing sounds, in summary, slightly more enlightened than it actually is. The enlightenment is partial. The arithmetic was not, when I figured it out, a piece of spiritual maturity. The arithmetic was, more accurately, a small practical accommodation I made because the alternative configuration was costing me more than I could afford to keep paying. I want to describe what the alternative configuration was, because the alternative is what most adults are, in fact, operating in, and the cost of the alternative is, on examination, considerable.
What I was doing before, without realizing I was doing it
The alternative configuration, for most of my twenties and early thirties, was a particular pattern I ran with almost every person I had a substantial disagreement with. I would, in the original disagreement, produce my argument. The other person would, in response, produce theirs. The disagreement would, by some combination of force and good faith, eventually resolve at the level of the conversation. Both parties would, at some point, move on to other topics. The conversation would end. The relationship would, in most cases, continue.
What I would do, internally, in the days and weeks following the disagreement, was a thing I now recognize as the actual problem. I would, in idle moments, keep running the argument. I would think, on a walk, about additional points I could have made. I would think, in the shower, about how the other person had failed to acknowledge a particular feature of my position. I would think, in the small hours of the morning, about the moment in the conversation when the other person had seemed to retreat from their original claim without explicitly granting that they had been wrong. The argument was, in some real way, still happening inside me, weeks after it had ostensibly ended outside.
The continuing-to-happen was not, on close examination, about the substance of the disagreement. The substance was, in most cases, fine. The continuing-to-happen was about a particular feature of the resolution that I was, without quite recognizing it, refusing to let the disagreement end without. The feature was the explicit admission, from the other person, that I had been right. The admission had not, in most cases, occurred. The not-occurring was what was keeping the argument alive in my head. The other person was, by every external measure, no longer in the argument. I was, by every internal measure, still very much in it.
What this kind of internal continuation actually costs
I want to be honest about what the internal continuation was costing me, because the cost was real and I did not, for years, fully register that I was paying it.
The first cost was the cognitive bandwidth. The argument I was still running internally was consuming, in any given week, a significant fraction of my available thinking. The fraction was not, in any single instance, dramatic. The cumulative effect, across the dozens of arguments I had at any given time in low-grade internal rotation, was considerable. The bandwidth was being spent. The bandwidth was not, accordingly, available for other things. The other things included substantive work, real friendships, present-tense pleasures, and the various other features of my life that the internal arguing was, in some real way, crowding out.
The second cost was the deterioration of the relationships in which the original disagreements had occurred. The other person, in most of these cases, had moved on. The other person was, in subsequent interactions with me, operating as if the disagreement had been resolved. I, in those same interactions, was operating with a small ongoing reservation that the other person could not see but that was, in some real way, affecting how I was showing up. The reservation was small. The reservation accumulated. Across enough months, the cumulative effect of my unresolved internal residue from various past disagreements was a particular kind of small ongoing distance from the people I was supposedly continuing to be close to. The distance was invisible to them. The distance was, in my own internal experience, quite real.
The third cost, and this is the one that took me longest to recognize, was that the wanting-them-to-admit-it was, in some real way, keeping me in a particular relationship to the other person that I would not, on examination, have chosen if I had been able to see it clearly. The wanting-them-to-admit-it required them to be a particular kind of person. It required them to be capable of the admission. Many of the people I was internally arguing with were not, on close examination, capable of the admission. The admission was not, in any realistic sense, going to come. By continuing to want it, I was, in some real way, demanding that they be a different person than they actually were. The demanding was, on examination, futile. The futility was, in some real way, what was keeping me in the loop.
What changed when I figured this out
I want to describe what happened when I started, in my mid-thirties, recognizing the configuration I had been running, because the change was not, in any dramatic sense, a transformation. The change was, more accurately, a small ongoing recalibration that has, across a few years, slowly altered how I now conduct disagreements.
The recalibration involves, when I notice myself still running an argument internally several days after it has externally ended, asking myself a particular question. The question is whether what I am currently waiting for is the other person’s admission, and whether the admission is, in any realistic sense, ever going to come. The question is, on close examination, an honest one. The answer, in most cases, is yes to the first and no to the second. I am waiting for the admission. The admission is not going to come. The continuing to wait for it is, accordingly, pointless.
The recognition that the continuing-to-wait is pointless does not, by itself, end the waiting. The waiting is automatic. The waiting is, in some real way, the default operation of my apparatus when an argument has not been formally resolved to my satisfaction. What the recognition does, however, is allow me to begin, slowly, to release the waiting. The releasing is not, in any single moment, dramatic. The releasing is, more accurately, the small ongoing decision to stop adding new energy to the internal loop and to allow the loop, over time, to wind down on its own.
The loop does wind down, when not fed. The winding-down takes longer than I would have expected. The winding-down also, on close examination, actually occurs. The argument that I had been running internally for three months stops, by some point, running. The other person has, by then, often forgotten the original disagreement entirely. I have, by then, regained the bandwidth that the loop had been consuming. The relationship has, in many cases, recovered some of the small ongoing distance that the loop had been producing. The recovery is not dramatic. The recovery is real.
What this means, in practice
The arithmetic I have arrived at, by this stage of my life, is the one I described at the start. The argument is not over when the other person admits I was right. The argument is over when I stop needing them to admit it. The first event almost never occurs. The second event is entirely within my own control. The only meaningful question, in any disagreement that has externally concluded, is whether I am willing to produce the second event regardless of whether the first event ever occurs.
I am, increasingly, willing. The willingness is not, on close examination, generosity. The willingness is, more accurately, self-interest. The internal argument I have been running is consuming bandwidth I would prefer to spend elsewhere. The bandwidth is finite. The argument is not, on examination, producing anything I actually want. The most rational thing to do, given these facts, is to release the argument. The release is not a kindness to the other person. The release is, more accurately, a kindness to myself.
I want to acknowledge that this is not the same as conceding. The arithmetic does not require me to decide that the other person was right. The arithmetic only requires me to stop needing them to publicly grant that I was. I can, in my own internal accounting, continue to believe that I was right about the original disagreement. The believing does not require their concurrence. The believing can, on examination, operate perfectly well on its own. I am right about the things I am right about. They are wrong about the things they are wrong about. The world will, in most cases, not arbitrate between us. The world does not need to. I do not need to be the world.
The strange consequence of operating this way for a few years is that the arguments I now have are, on examination, considerably lighter than the arguments I used to have. The lightness is the result of my having reduced the stakes. The stakes used to include the admission. The admission was always going to be the most difficult part of any resolution. By removing the admission from my requirements, I have, in some real way, made resolution structurally available in cases where, under the old configuration, resolution would not have been available. The other person no longer has to do the impossible thing. The other person only has to be a reasonably ordinary version of themselves, which is, in most cases, what they were going to be anyway. The argument, accordingly, ends on its own.
This is, I want to say plainly, not enlightenment. This is, more accurately, the small practical recognition that the wanting-them-to-admit-it was, on close examination, the most expensive part of how I used to conduct disagreements, and that the wanting was, in most cases, never going to be satisfied. The wanting was the cost. The cost was, on examination, payable by simply releasing the want. The release is the arithmetic. The arithmetic has, in the years since I figured it out, saved me more cognitive bandwidth than almost any other adjustment I have made in my late thirties. It is, in some real way, one of the more useful pieces of internal infrastructure I have ever built. It is also, on examination, available to anyone who is willing to recognize that the admission they have been waiting for is, in most cases, not coming, and that the waiting for it is, accordingly, what they should be working on rather than the argument itself.
