My Journey to Loving Being Wrong

As a young kid, I used to perform quite well in school. I got good grades, was loved by most of my teachers, and had a reputation of being "one of the good ones".

And being a good one, I grew a tendancy to focus on being right, all the time, and a dislike (hate would be a better word) of being wrong. I hated my mistakes and it casted an ugly shadow over both my mind and soul.

In high school, I was a member of the school's debate team, and in the debate team, it is all about winning. No matter what you were arguing for, you have to prove you are right. The best debaters were the ones who debated for an argument that they don't believe in or support, and won.

In the debate team you would learn to listen to your "opponent", not to understand, but to find flaws in their logic and use that to attack.

As much as my experience in the debate team has helped me acquire very useful skills around critical and logical thinking, story-telling, resourcefulness, and also helped me build a structured approach for analysis and problem solving, I must say it also fuled my flawed self-centric and egotisitic nature, where winning was front and center and losing was buried in execuses or downplayed by a character that only accepted being right and never wrong.

Fortunately for me, I was not generaly perceived as arrogant or self-centered. I have been blessed by wonderful parents who instilled in myself and my sister lots of values and principles that helped tame the beast within and prevented my shortcomings (Which I was not aware of at the time) from paving a path of arrogance and selfishness. And though my flaws would occasionally manifest to the external world, they were mostly confined within the labyrinth of my mind and soul.

As far as I can remember, I was always an adept observer of this world, and as a serial observer, I developed a habit of looking at life from a third-person view. As I practiced my habit I obtained better view of myself in relationship to this world and to other people.

I started building some "semi-impartial" views of myself. I could see with more clarity that I am living in world that has far more better people than me, in all aspects of life, in academic success, in human relationships, in logic and intellignece, and even in backgammon. It appears that my usual success in many of those domains, my obsession of being right and my inclination to bury my shortcomings have all clouded my judgement and prevented me from becoming a better version of myself.

This is when I realized the fallacy of success, of always being right, of winning. This is when I realized the dangers behind a mind that does not accept being wrong.

Which took me to my next phase of evolution. Accepting that I might be wrong (sometimes). I started to be more open to the obvious fact (isn't always very obvious) that I am only human, that I will do right sometimes and I will do wrong the other times, and that when I do wrong, I still have the chance to correct course.

I must say, accepting failure has helped a lot on the emotional and psychological front. I became more calm and more resilient. Yet accepting being wrong did not yield the values I was hoping for on the personal development front. I was not becoming my better version, at least not at the pace that I would like. It seemed that there was another piece of the puzzle that I did not find yet.

My readings about the human mind and soul has led me to discover and learn about our brain's defense mechanisms. Our miraculous brains are designed on several principles and one of they key principles is to avoid pain. I understood why our brains would sometimes downplay our shortcomings, shield us from reality, and cloud our judgement, just to save us from the pain associated with being wrong. Our brains would hide the facts that hurt us the most and offer false interpretations of our doings in the hope to bury this pain.

And brain design principles can not be altered. At least as far as my knowledge took me. We can learn things, acquire knowledge, or even alter behavior, but the design principles will always remain intact.

I then realized that if I want this really to work, a paradigm shift would be existential. Wrong can not be synonymous to pain. It is not enough to just accept being wrong, for this to work, I must rewire my brain towards "loving" being wrong. For it is only then when my defense mechanisms will no longer be needed, where there will be no pain, and where I can seize the opportunities of development that I have long missed in my many wrongs.

But how would you love being wrong? it seems unnatural. This can only happen when you realize that being right is a state of stagnancy that offers no path for development, while being wrong is rich with opportunities for growth. That being wrong is your only ally on the tedious journey of transcendence and evolution. The only way to become your better version.

And since then, I grew fond of being wrong. My mind's default state is now to find chances of being proven wrong and then to reap the many fruits of knowledge and lessons-learned that lies within my wrong doings.

This is not to say that I will easily be subdued to calims of being wrong. Everyone else will have to put in a strong fight to prove me wrong. After all, my opinions and positions are usually deeply founded in values, principles and logic. It is just saying that my mind is (mostly) in a state of extreme openness to be proven wrong, that it wants to enjoy the beauty of it, and that it is eager to learn a lot from this experience.

I also realize that I have a lot more work to do to convince the world that I am open and eager (and may be this article is an attempt to do so), for I am aware that my decision to put a good fight may, in many cases, deter many people from trying, and may burn more bridges of human relationships, for which I care more than right, wrong and logic.

I must finally admit that this is a continuous battle that I have to fight with a less than perfect soul. A fight against my pride, ego, and deeply rooted convictions. And yet, I also understand that I do not have to fight this battle alone, that by the blessings of Allah and the help of my many good friends, I stand a much greater chance. With the gift of feedback, kindness, and benevolence of the many good souls that I have been blessed of knowing and meeting throughout this journey they call life.

N.B I might be wrong about everything in this article