There's nothing wrong with being wrong

Being wrong is not a problem; believing that being wrong is unacceptable, and therefore impossible, is a very big problem. (State Library of Queensland)

Somewhere along the line, some of us got the message that we have to be perfect to be loved or worthy.

It can be tough to live with, especially if we don’t consciously realize that we’re carrying this weight with us all the time.

Daily existence becomes a precarious scramble up a mountain path where both sides are crumbling into nothing. To be wrong is to fall into the darkness. One false move and we’re plunging into the abyss, where no one can save us.

Therefore, we can’t be wrong. It costs too much and the consequences are too frightening. So instead of acknowledging and learning from our mistakes, misconceptions, and missteps, we have to distort reality and find some way to bend the circumstances so that we’re not wrong. It was someone else, or it was someone else’s fault, or we actually meant this, or we were just kidding, or we weren’t even trying, or maybe the machine messed up in some way. Anything to avoid the pain of being wrong.

This behavior is understandable if your worldview is that being wrong is unacceptable. But that is only one way of seeing things. It’s also reasonable to believe that there’s nothing wrong with being wrong. What if you don’t have to be right all the time to be loved, valued, and respected?

True, there are some mistakes that can easily cause death and destruction. However, some of the greatest disasters of all time could have been prevented if key people had realized and admitted that they were wrong before doing too much damage. Someone at Chernobyl must have thought or even said out loud, “Hey guys, this doesn’t seem like a good idea,” but larger egos prevailed. No one wanted to be called out or consider that they might be wrong — and then something far worse happened.

The irony goes even deeper: Being wrong is not the end; it’s actually the engine of growth and increased competence. In the moment when you realize that you are wrong, you can see something new. You’ve learned something. If you want to get better at something fast, you might even try to be wrong so that you can always be at the leading edge of your knowledge and skill.

If your deeply held belief is that being wrong is dangerous, one blog article isn’t going to change your mind — especially if this belief is an unconscious one, going back to a childhood in which you had to be “right” to get the approval of your caregivers. But it’s worth poking around in this area to question whether the truths we’ve built our lives around are truths at all. In other words, we may be wrong about being wrong. And that’s okay, too.