ging through their earthly existence firmly convinced that everything must be either black or white. Truth or falsehood. Right or wrong. Winners or losers. Let’s face it. Nobody wants to be a loser. Therefore it becomes imperative that we protect our self-esteem by fighting to “win” an argumThere are probably at least 17 gazillion reasons why folks get into arguments. Unfortunately none of them are very valid.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s take a look at the base word first. My super-duper dictionary defines “argue” as: “To present reasons for or against a thing”. OK, so the word “thing” leaves a little to be desired but I can translate that to mean an opinion or concept. No problem. To me then, “argue” is a good, logical word that simply means stating your side of a case and presenting valid reasons why you feel your point of view is more logical than those of another person. It’s part of a discussion that can hopefully result in at least concurrence if not total agreement.

“Argument” to me however, holds a different and generally more severe connotation. When I hear the word “argument”, I have a tendency to picture a verbal fight. A battle to determine a victor. A war of words meant to lay waste to an opponent’s opinions or even feelings. And that bothers me.

Maybe arguments sometimes start because one or both of the parties involved have not yet realized that life is filled with gray areas – shadings of truth. They may be trudging through their earthly existence firmly convinced that everything must be either black or white. Truth or falsehood. Right or wrong. Winners or losers. Let’s face it. Nobody wants to be a loser. Therefore it becomes imperative that we protect our self-esteem by fighting to “win” an argume

he word “thing” leaves a little to be desired but I can translate that to mean an opinion or concept. No problem. To me then, “argue” is a good, logical word that simply means stating your side of a case and presenting valid reasons why you feel your point of view is more logical than those of another person. It’s part of a discussion that can hopefully result in at least concurrence if not total agreement.

“Argument” to me however, holds a different and generally more severe connotation. When I hear the word “argument”, I have a tendency to picture a verbal fight. A battle to determine a victor. A war of words meant to lay waste to an opponent’s opinions or even feelings. And that bothers me.

Maybe arguments sometimes start because one or both of the parties involved have not yet realized that life is filled with gray areas – shadings of truth. They may be trudging through their earthly existence firmly convinced that everything must be either black or white. Truth or falsehood. Right or wrong. Winners or losers. Let’s face it. Nobody wants to be a loser. Therefore it becomes imperative that we protect our self-esteem by fighting to “win” an argum

nother person. It’s part of a discussion that can hopefully result in at least concurrence if not total agreement.

“Argument” to me however, holds a different and generally more severe connotation. When I hear the word “argument”, I have a tendency to picture a verbal fight. A battle to determine a victor. A war of words meant to lay waste to an opponent’s opinions or even feelings. And that bothers me.

Maybe arguments sometimes start because one or both of the parties involved have not yet realized that life is filled with gray areas – shadings of truth. They may be trudging through their earthly existence firmly convinced that everything must be either black or white. Truth or falsehood. Right or wrong. Winners or losers. Let’s face it. Nobody wants to be a loser. Therefore it becomes imperative that we protect our self-esteem by fighting to “win” an argum

etermine a victor. A war of words meant to lay waste to an opponent’s opinions or even feelings. And that bothers me.

Maybe arguments sometimes start because one or both of the parties involved have not yet realized that life is filled with gray areas – shadings of truth. They may be trudging through their earthly existence firmly convinced that everything must be either black or white. Truth or falsehood. Right or wrong. Winners or losers. Let’s face it. Nobody wants to be a loser. Therefore it becomes imperative that we protect our self-esteem by fighting to “win” an argum

ging through their earthly existence firmly convinced that everything must be either black or white. Truth or falsehood. Right or wrong. Winners or losers. Let’s face it. Nobody wants to be a loser. Therefore it becomes imperative that we protect our self-esteem by fighting to “win” an argument with everything we can muster. It’s a matter of ego survival.

Sometimes we argue to protect a lie – one that we have verbalized to another person or even one that we have perhaps inadvertently told our self related to a situation or event. Again, to protect our ego, it’s mandatory that we put a bunch of effort – not to mention creativity and volume – into our discussion.

There are times too, when arguments seem to just evolve out of what started out to be a little clarifying chat. When a bit of encouragement to try to remember to put the toilet seat down when we’re finished transitions into a full-blown shouting match over what Uncle Harry really meant by his smart-assed comment at your grandmother’s funeral. And when are you going to get that damned piece-of-crap car off the front lawn anyway!!? You get the idea.

The result of any full-blown, confrontational argument of course, is that there are no winners. Only flared tempers, hurt feelings and a heightened dislike for the total idiot you’ve had the misfortune to know in the first place. Sure, things may cool back down after a while – maybe a long while. But there are times that a piddling dis