What if You're Wrong?

Being wrong is human. Admitting is divine.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

— John C. Maxwell

One of the reasons why we see people stay on one spot for many years is this; they never want to entertain the fact that they might be wrong. They believe they know it all, all their ideas are perfect, all their beliefs are the ultimate, and whoever disagrees with them is definitely in the wrong.

My question this week is, what if you are wrong? What if the ideas that you have staunchly lived by, the opinions you have held for many years and even fought people and destroyed relationships for is wrong?

Just pause, and think about it.

I know we hate being wrong. What's more, we hate being told we are wrong. We always like to think that we are on the right side of everything, on the right side of history, on the right side of living, but haven't you ever run with an idea for many weeks, data collected for months, only to discover that you've been chasing the wind, and that you have been wrong all along? Except you're actively lying to yourself, you would have had this experience. How did you feel?

Terrible, right? Devastating, right? You felt so bad and embarrassed that you never want to feel that way again, right? When someone calls out your years long of bullshit with facts and figures, with undisputeable evidence, you feel like the ground should open up and swallow you, right? You're wondering how I know. Boy! Have I been there!

As a result of this feeling, we always like to think we are right, and still hold on to our opinions, ideas, and beliefs especially when there aren't sufficient evidences to prove us wrong, but we can feel how wrong we are in our guts. We like to do everything we can to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong, so we rather hold on to our base knowledge.

But wait. You missed something. Can you remember what else happened amidst the feeling of embarrassment and frustration that came from being wrong? Enlightenment. Superior knowledge. You learned something new, something different. You learned the right thing.

This is where we get it wrong. We let the terrible feeling we had to becloud our minds from what truly happened, and how it affected and will continue to affect us going forward. We focus too much on how bad we felt that we ignore the fact that we had gained a better understanding. We learned a superior thought process. We got smarter.

We focus too much on how bad we feel from being wrong that we ignore the fact that we have gained a better understanding and learned the right thing.

We got smarter but we didn't even know it because we were in our feelings. We let our egos distract us from the fact that we have just been delivered from a wrong idea, we have just learned a new thing and can now live our lives based on the right knowledge.

So is there a way we can do something about it? A way we can set up our minds up to be wrong and not feel bad or embarrassed about it? A way we can retrain our minds such that we won't feel like we want the ground to open up and swallow us when we are wrong?

An emphatic yes! And this takes us back to the subject of this newsletter. "What if you are wrong?"

The best way to be wrong and not feel like your ego has been hurt, or feel embarrassed that you are tempted to still hold on and argue for the wrong opinion and idea is to already set your mind on the fact that you might be wrong! Your ideas are not perfect.

All the opinions you hold now are based on the knowledge you have gathered in the past. Except you believe you know it all, and you have gathered all the knowledge there is to know about all the subject matters in this world, then there's a chance that you could be wrong!

Holding it in your heart, that you might be wrong, will help you not kick against superior knowledge and growth when you encounter them the hard way.

If someone disagrees with you and presents a far better idea and a greater knowledge, proving your own idea wrong, you won't feel anyway about it, because you have left a room for error in your head in the first place, you have beforehand, come to a concession, an acceptance in your heart that you could be wrong. You don't know it all.

Knowing that you might be wrong will restrain you from kicking against superior knowledge and growth when you encounter them the hard way.

This way, it'll be easier to grow, because you'd be more accepting of greater knowledge, your heart will be automatically predisposed to learning new things and accommodating opposing views.

So much that, even when you are sure you're right, you're convinced, convicted beyond doubt, you'd still give a fair hearing to the opposing view, and then you can disagree gracefully.

This is the way of the wise. Be open-minded. Be an ever learning, ever growing flower. As you go this week and engage with all manner of people from all walks of life, have this in your mind: You might be wrong.

To your growth,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired ✨