Being Wrong is Beautiful

Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

How do we think of being wrong? Do we think of it as a good thing or a bad thing? Being wrong is a beautiful thing, but we’re not socialized to think of it that way. Being wrong means being punished by the teacher. Being wrong means being imprisoned. Being wrong means that our judgmental peers will shame us for our wrongness. But being wrong is beautiful.

We just don’t call it being wrong when we experience it. We call it being inspired, or growing. If we were to refer to those experiences of growth as having been wrong in the past, all of our socialization around failure would come crashing down on us. But that’s what being inspired is: being wrong. Our beliefs are composed of what we’ve been exposed to, and what we decide to accept, reject, or expand on. Exposure is huge. We’re exposed to all kinds of things that are false. The more exposure to new ideas and experiences we have, the more opportunity we have to compare new to old and value the new versus the old. Exposure is an exit from ignorance (in that particular area), and it’s a good thing. But shaming ignorance closes the door to exposure rather than opening it, and we need to try a new approach. The times where I’ve been able to see that I was wrong were after exposure to new experiences and inspiration.

Being wrong is not a bad thing; it’s a good thing. It means we’re growing and being inspired. We have an ever-expanding trail of wrongs with every new experience. Resocializing ourselves to see having been wrong as a good thing will take a cooperative effort from all of us. This means exposing ourselves and each other to new ideas and experiences, rather than ridiculing each other or shaming each other for our current ones. It means thinking of ourselves and each other as socialized beings and not looking at any individual as a single individual who just “is” that way. This means not holding on to certain beliefs as our identity, but as perspectives that mature, dissolve, or pass through our minds. Beliefs, like ourselves, are dynamic and temporary, not fixed. This dynamism is what makes us beautiful, and we need to create a culture that supports dynamic and inspiring growth. Being wrong is beautiful, and I hope we can help each other see it that way.