Being willing to be wrong or, perhaps even harder, being willing to change is a challenge that has received a lot of attention from those looking at our actions and the affect those actions have in forming a more positive world. There are articles from the Dali Lama and Deepak Chopra, random sermons, social medial quotes, and disturbing studies on how difficult it is to change your mind, even with facts. But the consensus is that this willingness to see another version of what you know is true is the heart of healing our world.

This week I’ve learned that “being wrong” is a dangerous topic on which to write! The week included my walking off with someone else’s shopping cart, trying to pay with a membership card, and turning in the wrong driveway. And that  all happened in just one day. Perhaps none of those events mattered that much, but my apparent inability to do anything right began in the middle of a funeral. “I should have told Josh,” I whispered to the friend sitting next to me. “Yes, you should have.” And there you have it. Sometimes one is wrong, willingly or not.

Like a two-year old, my immediate response to almost anything is “no” or “can’t” or “won’t.” If I weren’t wrong a lot, I’d never be so bountifully blessed with great friends, beautiful places, and incredible experiences. A few months ago I moved into a small jewel of an apartment with all my worldly goods, many of which I hadn’t seen or touched for more than a decade (a story for another time). For example, I was sure the two big pictures should go by the window and the quilt should go by the corner cupboard to define the “dining room.” “No,” said Phyllis, “the quilt goes in the middle of the pictures. And you should put nails up to hang stuff in the kitchen.” No, I thought. Quilt on the end. No nails.

But at IKEA I found some incredible “rails” to hang things on for the kitchen – a compromise to my original “no.” And when the pictures were hung, the quilt clearly belonged in the middle. Now this is a tiny example. While my apartment might look better, the world as a whole isn’t affected by better accessibility in my kitchen or by picture placement. Or is it? Is a willingness to be wrong a way for some other truth, perhaps in this case about friendship, hospitality, and beauty, to blossom?

And there are other angles. A common one is assuming you understand what is going on with someone else. “Tell me where I’m wrong.” When Martha Beck trains her life coaches, this is one of the first phrases they learn. This is a concrete way to see whether your assumptions about someone are true. In her recent three-day workshop that I attended, she used that phrase over and over again when engaging with participants. Maybe because they’re in awe of her, no one came up with anything…

But this isn’t always true. One of Beck’s gifts is her ability to tell stories about herself. Yourself is really the only person you can tell stories about. And this “willingness to be wrong” piece comes up over and over in her voice and other voices as people work to heal the planet, beginning with themselves, often in relation to things that seem simple or silly as we go through our day. Remember how sure someone was that you never_______  – pick a topic. Eat grapes. Wear red. Answer texts. Fly kites. And how they argued with you when you bought grapes, “but you never eat them!”? I’d guess that most problems between people are based on “being right.”

Ah, but what about the big issues? As I look out the window while writing this, the world is quite clearly flat. And I can’t think of a single action I might perform right now that doesn’t support that notion or that might be threatened by my being wrong.  But I am wrong. Or am I really? We used a level on every picture when we were hanging them. Isn’t that as true as the curved earth picture that sometimes appears at the top of this page?

The problem with being wrong is that we’re so sure we aren’t. Something is categorically, unequivocally the way we say it is. I used the “flat world” example because currently, although it was once controversial, whether the world is round isn’t a hot, political topic, and I’m more interested in our theory than an argument. But how might those who disagree with us on the hot topics be right? Even if you realize you can’t give up your opinion, what can you learn from the other side? Or is it even a side? Play games with it. If you think it is stupid that so and so is doing whatever, come up with at least three reasons that might make sense. (“Why are they buying only one small thing when there’s no parking and the line is 20 minutes long?” Well? Maybe they got to the car and realized they’d forgotten one thing. Maybe they desperately needed to kill time and impossible shopping does that for them. Maybe they live next door, even if you’re sure there’s no housing there.)

While I haven’t listed controversial topics, you’re welcome to. In fact, I hope you will. But when you do include a bit of the other side. This really is the beginning of making the world work. So let’s start!

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The Place Where We Are Right

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the Spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

—Yehuda Amichai (via Parker Palmer on Facebook)

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Photo credits from top:

The wrong way – smlp.co.uk
Rounds and Then Some (Quilt by Loni Kula) – Spirit Moxie
IKEA rails – Spirit Moxie
Duty Call: Someone is WRONG on the Internet – xkcd.com