How To Be Wrong
Do you want to be right, or do you want to be better?
“It must be so frustrating for your kids for you to be always right.”
This Facebook comment made me chuckle. Yes, like all kids, they hate having parents who are “always” right. But what really made me laugh is that they, more than anybody else, get to see me be wrong all the time. With kids it’s easy to let your guard down, to throw out untested ideas as facts, to default to the old standby “because I said so.” And because of this, they see me be wrong a lot.
But because I’m committed to being wrong the right way, they also see me admit it. They’ve seen me be wrong in the answers I give them to everyday questions. They’ve seen me be wrong in how I respond to stressful situations. They’ve seen me be inconsistent and hypocritical. They’ve seen me lie and obfuscate. But when it’s apparent that I’ve been wrong, they see me acknowledge my wrongness, sit in it a minute, and then grow. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into learning how to be wrong — and I’m not perfect with it. But the skills I’ve acquired and continue to grow help me become a better person every day.
We are all wrong about a lot of things a lot of the time. All of us. We can be wrong because we didn’t consider all the facts. We can be wrong because we misinterpreted a situation. We can be…
