At the risk of stating the obvious, I have often noticed that it's uncomfortable to be wrong. We don't like it one bit. We rail against it. Our egos do backflips to conjure some remedy that we may be mistaken about having been wrong. We get defensive and argumentative. We use our creativity and ingenuity to sculpt debate platforms and develop keywords, and we bring emotional weapons to the front lines in order to rally support for our wrongness. Our present fight in congress is about that very thing: we must not be wrong.
But is being wrong so bad? Isn't being wrong indicative of having been removed from the shadows of error? Isn't discovering one is wrong cause for celebration? Isn't resistance to discovering one's error living in the past? I say live in the present! If I discover I have been wrong it it because I am now, hopefully, right!
Allow your ego to step aside and celebrate the fact that you are no longer in the dark. Once you have discovered you're wrong about something, even something thoroughly out of your power, say a prayer of thanks at having been delivered from it. Be thankful. Be hopeful. Be mindful that, in the final analysis, we will, at the end of our days look back at all the wrong ideas we had and laugh at many of them. Will we see those moments as having been shrouded in error, or as moments of new light being exposed? Will we regret our misunderstandings or will we find pride in the incremental eradication of them? Will we see a pattern of progress? How could we not? We find out we're wrong all the time.
Today is currently a holiday celebrated for Christopher Columbus who discovered the New World, our world, in 1492. But we now know this is wrong. Columbus did not discover this land, it was already long known and by many peoples and many centuries previous. Columbus was trying to find a new route to India. And like a typical male, he failed to ask for directions.
He washed ashore on the islands of this continent and smugly declared it India. He conferred the name Indian to the indigenous people he found here. And in many corners we call them Indians to this day.
Let's make today a day about new discovery. Discovery of the fact that we are often wrong and thank heaven for that. For if we are often aware that we have been wrong, we are also aware that we are made right. We are enlightened and unburdened one discovery at a time. The blindfold inches its way down and though the light may be bright at first, we are no less relieved at the sight of the sun.
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