being wrong

I dreamt last night that I was defending my doctoral thesis—I have no idea what the subject or conclusion was—and one of the "judges" asked me if I were willing to be wrong about my findings.

I started in on some explanation about how all research involves a fair amount of conjecture and guesswork, but then I stopped myself. Instead, I answered the question very simply: "If it reveals the truth, or brings me one step closer to true understanding, then, yes, I'm willing to be wrong about everything."

I'm hoping I can live up to that same sentiment in the waking world.

Our society is not very forgiving of people who make bad judgments, make mistakes, or are otherwise proven wrong. At least, not generally. Somehow, the quality of being wrong has come to be regarded as reflecting questionable moral fibre, lack of intelligence or integrity, unreliability, and weakness of personal character—when instead it is the inability to learn from mistakes that would reflect such, not the mistake itself.

There are some rather powerful exceptions regularly making headlines, though these are also the people most frequently passing the buck for their own shortcomings.

I had a very frustrating phone call about a year ago with a technology customer support person who obviously didn't know what she was talking about (relying upon company scripts rather than on real technological know-how), and refused to admit as much. While we were on the phone, I figured out what was wrong with my own DSL modem, but the rep wasn't interested. Instead, she became increasingly angry with me for coming across my own solution. I honestly wasn't telling her that she was "wrong," but I'm guessing that's what she was hearing.

During my thirty-six years, I've been guilty of the same. Haven't we all? We don't want to admit that we're not all-knowing, that there is the possibility of even the smallest gap in our façades of perfection. Or something like that.

The old expression says, "When you lose, don't lose the lesson," except that seems to be precisely what happens. When proven wrong, we're more likely to hide our faces in shame, to back-pedal with excuses and finger-pointing, rather than saying, "Yeah, that didn't work out. Let's see what I can do differently next time."

Imagine if Thomas Edison had given up after his first failure to make a usable filament for the electric light bulb. Would we still be sitting in the dark because of a single defeat? Edison tried and failed two thousand times before coming across a filament that worked properly.

Thomas Edison was a firm believer in the importance of failure. Failure was what led him to success. Once, when he was working on developing a better battery, a discouraged assistant came up to him and suggested that Mr. Edison must be ready to quit after having performed some 50,000 tests without success. "You must be pretty downhearted with the lack of progress", the assistant said. Edison replied, "Downhearted? We've made a lot of progress. At least we know 50,000 things that won't work!" (source: Home School Learning Network)

How many of us today can claim such dedication and perseverance, especially in a world which demands "bigger, faster, stronger"—nothing short of immediate, perfect performance every time? Too often, we fail by not taking the first step, not taking the risk that we might be wrong, and so don't even try to begin with. We live our lives toeing the line that is draw for us. Too afraid of stumbling and falling flat on our faces, we never step over into unchartered territory.

Today, I'd like to start putting my dream-state principles to the test. Yes, if it reveals greater truth, or brings me to a better and more complete understanding of myself and how both the world and the universe work, then I am willing to be wrong about pretty much everything. Bring it on.