When Wrong Is Right

Upon watching Kathryn Schulz's TED talk about being wrong, I was incredibly impressed about her views on the subject. I had never dwelled on the idea of being wrong until hearing this, so even though most of her ideas made a lot of sense, I had never consciously considered them until now.

Her first idea that I found intriguing was that feeling wrong typically feels rights. While I don't agree entirely that we don't usually receive any feelings if we are wrong, I do agree that most people don't just assume they are wrong. There are times where I won't say things in case I am wrong, but I don't know if that is more about my lack of confidence, or if I am receiving a feeling.

Another subject that I had never really considered was how much society is culturally affected by the idea of being wrong. The example of the grade school paper was so strong because it harkens back to such a young age. We have been conditioned to assume being wrong is bad. If the lazy kid who doesn't do his homework is wrong, then I can't be wrong or I will be like that kid.

While I think it is good that I am now acknowledging our cultures influence, it makes me more concerned for how we break out of that mold. I feel like this talk relates a lot to J.K. Rowling's talk about failure. Being wrong can be considered a (very) small failure, and last week I said that failure is one of the only ways to improve. I feel like being wrong is the same way. How can we better know how to improve if we are too scared to be wrong?

Think of how many things we would never have if everyone was scared to be wrong. Two quotes come to mind: The first one is Thomas Edison's quote about making the light bulb. "I didn't fail, I just found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb." The second one I can't remember where I heard it, but I once heard an expert referred to as "A person who has had enough time to make every possible mistake within their field, and know how to improve it."

This really helped me realize that there is no way to improve if we can't admit that we are wrong in certain situations, and be willing to try different things.