I was told recently that I need to grow a backbone. I'm really not a non-confrontational person (as evidenced by the fact that I started arguing with the person who said I needed to get a spine), but I admit that it's usually easier and more beneficial to just sit back and things take their course. I'm not going to argue with a teacher over one point on a test or scream at someone for cutting me off in traffic. Those types of things are so inconsequential that it isn't even worth my time bothering with them.
After all, what use is arguing over things that don't matter? All you're going to do is piss people off. If you know you're right, congratulations. You can now consider yourself morally superior to the other person. After that, just move on.
I am turning to Quiz Bowl to provide an example of my philosophy in action. I was at a tournament recently. During the fifth round, there was a mistake in the answer key to one of the questions. The other team answered correctly, but their answer was counted as wrong because of the typo. One of my teammates did the math and discovered that the other team had been right. We talked to the moderator and they were given their points. Later in the round, our team got an answer wrong because of a typo and the team returned the favor.
Fast forward to the seventh round. The same thing happened to us again, but the moderator initially refused to give us the point, as the other team had answered correctly. One of my teammates began berating the moderator and the other team, much to my chagrin. He ended up getting us the point back, but from then on the attitude towards us of the moderator and the other team was decidedly negative. The other team ended up winning because of it. Obviously, I was pretty mad.
There are some things in life that you need to fight for. So why not concentrate on those things?
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