Spiritual Journeys April 6, 2026 Issue

Rising above the need to be “right”

I could not be any more or less intelligent than anyone else because we are all expressions of the one Mind, God.

Michelle Carney

For much of my life, I felt a deep need to be “right.” During my childhood, I was a ward of the state, and while so many other children apparently had a normal family life, the one thing I had was my ability to excel academically.

Told from an early age how smart I was, I felt it was important to show others just how much I knew. Intelligence was the measurement I used to judge myself as either superior or inferior to another person. This was particularly evident when I would interrupt other people’s conversations and spout some fact or another. As you can imagine, this didn’t have the most positive effect on my relationships.

As I learned about and began to study Christian Science, I realized that this behavior was driven by being afraid, deep down, that I wasn’t good enough. I realized that I needed to get rid of the fear so that I could be healed of this need to be “right.”

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