For I am Willing to be Wrong.
Do you ever feel that being right is a burden? In our quest for absolute certainty, which is really our desire to avoid the pain of being wrong, we hold on to certain truths with a steadfast grip that will likely be there when we are dead.
Sometimes we hold onto our judgments with equal passion, without ever stopping to ask if the desire to be right is overriding our basic human requirement to be kind.
I know I have been guilty of this many times.
I have seen good friends struggle so hard to be right that they are willing to defy logic, common sense and even their innate compassion for others. It’s never a fun thing to watch, and it’s even worse when you see that behavior in yourself.
It takes a measure of integrity in your heart to stand in the midst of the opinions of others, and utter a single statement that gives you so much flexibility.
“I am willing to be wrong”.
I’ve tried to incorporate this into my soul recently, and I’ve been very surprised by the latitude of thought and the inherent sense of freedom that I find in this attitude.
As I have removed from me the requirement to ‘always be right’ I am open to possibilities that once were beyond my understanding and experience. By removing the need to be right, I am left to explore the secrets of the universe.
And what I find is amazing.
Being willing to be wrong insulates me against the opinions and judgments of others. Once I accept the possibility of my fallibility, the voices in my head (not those kind of voices, well at least I hope not) that once warned me of the pain of being wrong are silenced or reduced to desperate whispers of the potential outcomes of my exploration.
Outcomes which exist only in the possible, not in the actual.
Once you remove the stigma of failure from your reasoning, suddenly avenues of possibility are judged not on their ability to destroy, but on the potential price that may be required for a lesson that may well be worth learning.
No experience is truly wasted unless you cannot learn from it, and I have yet to find such an experience. For the heart that is open, and the mind that is seeking, will always find a lesson to be learned.
You just have to believe in yourself, and face the day with an attitude of self approval deep within you.
For once you have accepted the truths of your soul, and found a sense of identity outside of your own abilities, you will come to realize that your value is not in your anxious striving for an imaginary perfection, but in your willingness to place curiosity over concern, humility over hate, love over loss and wonder over worry.
In the end, you will come to understand that the value that you seek was always there inside you, just waiting to be born anew.
Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings