Getting It Wrong

Over the past few weeks I've been reading Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz. She examines why we take such pleasure in being right and hate when we're wrong. She makes the case that we really shouldn't be so bothered when we make a mistake. As someone who loves being right, I highly recommend Being Wrong. It's helping me examine my own character.

Our world is filled with examples of people who screwed up in a big way. Americans, in particular, love to create heroes only to topple them when they blow it. We expect perfection in others without demanding it in ourselves. As Schulz argues, we toss off our own foibles as "being human," while we demand a higher code of conduct from others. In our 24 x 7 internet/cable TV culture, we're more than ready to pounce on the latest misdeed and dismiss any apology from the guilty party as window dressing.

This amuses me since apologizing to one person is hard enough. I can't imagine the humiliation in apologizing to the whole world for a slip of the tongue, an ill-chosen word, an inopportune moment. Maybe a little empathy is in order.

Getting a little older and slightly more mellow also helps you realize the folly in insisting on your own rightness, especially when it doesn't matter. (Let's face it 99% of the time, it doesn't matter.) The problem is that all too often when we absolutely insist that we're right, we are in fact wrong. If you've made a complete jerk of yourself while insisting that you're right, it's very hard when you're forced to admit your mistake. There's a lot less pain in the end if you're cordial when you disagree with someone. If you are right and the other person admits it, you can be the equally gracious recipient of their apology. But ultimately it's in being wrong where the congenial behavior wins out. Because taking a bite of humble pie is so much easier when you've laced the filling with sweetness rather than bitterness.