The need to be CORRECT OR WRONG?

My learning journey....

??On my flight from Paris to Atlanta, seated beside me was a young lady and a gentleman (presumably doctors). As I tried to catch up on some sleep, I began to overhear their conversation. As an intruding listener, and with very little option, I had to let their voices seep into my ear's space. The lady was talking about how her parents raised her, her teenage woes due to overflowing restrictions, the do’s and don’ts and many more shortfalls she discovered over her growing up days. Her conversation led to the opinion that her parents were inappropriate in the way her siblings & she were raised and, they could have done better parenting.

The gentleman too had similar experience and he was raising 3 children, boastfully emphasizing the dos’ and don’ts he exercised on them. With rigid justifications he was showing his children that he was the best & visibly a responsible parent and, thus creating better & independent individuals for the family & the society. His construct was, that if they weren’t corrected now, they would end up learning outrageous behaviors & practices from their circle of friends and other peer groups.

This conversation was worth listening to, and it was providing me ample food for thoughts that I’ am sharing with you to think, decide or disagree. My views are an addition to this...

Visualize both these perceptions – one as a child, and the other as a?parent. Both justifying - one on her perception towards her parents and the other stating how he was perfect in his actions, norms and guidelines towards the children.

I was opinionated on, how each of their perspectives change when it revolves around the self, as a child on one end and, the parent on the other. Though each correct in their own ways, each also failed to see the view point of the other, and how their opinion would be shaped. We most often take a stand wanting to prove that ‘We’ are correct and, its mostly all the time that we do it. Does it derive that the other person is wrong?

Justification of what is correct & wrong begins in our early childhood. Parents & teachers through their own design of raising & teaching children start imposing Correct & Wrong on the children. Therefore, every situation, action and behavior has to be force-fitted into Correct or Wrong chambers. The implied learning from this is, what they (parents or teachers) think or do is the only way to be correct. And being correct is the only thing that matters, and, this at any cost. So experiencing being correct and proving it is, so much of a delight, actually much more than the joy of being correct. How sic can that get?

Often this leads to an individual’s stunted reasoning, and malnourished creativity - this resulting in creating an ocean of mankind who want to be seen as correct every time & all the time. Individual reasoning and ability to think differently is never an option. This culminates into justifying every action, inaction, decision, reasoning and thought process into, Wrong as Correct and, Correct as Wrong because, this is the cliché and well known & learnt from parents & teachers in their early ages of learning & behavior formation stages. Being Wrong is bigger than any other cardinal sins.

No & Yes, the Shouldn’t & Should', Do & Don't continue to resound my ears!?

Even after this many years after leaving home & school, I do not have a respite from these politically correct WRONGs and incorrect CORRECTs'... Pushed all the time to be a typecasted CORRECT, our bosses / managers keep the legacy alive & growing. The craving to make you want to be 'correct' all the time, and, at all cost and means is subconsciously a survival mechanism thrusted upon by intelligent individuals to the gullible. This, I call 'manipulation'. It often continues to be reinforced by a punch-line I told you! and, I was right!

Why can’t we both be wrong or both be correct? Like every coin has 2 faces, so also every situation. What’s looks 6 to you, looks 9 to the other person facing you. How good will a parent of a child feel when the child points out that they were raised wrong. While all the while the parent assumed that besides being correct, they also gave their best as a parent. The parent's moment-of-truth is, when the child questions the capability of parenting skills and also gives them a super credit for messing up their childhood, adolescent, teenage, their education decision, besides their careers, their marriage and sometimes their entire family. A teacher or a manager at the workplace too feels insulted and worthless! This often is a result of the individual's want to be CORRECT all the time and, therefore wanting the other to be WRONG.

Everything one sees, understands, reasons, acts or reacts is based on individual perceptions. A manipulated perception that has been put into them or, a perception that was formed out of an experience in their life or, some good story told badly or, a bad story narrated well enough to leave a +ve impact (mostly without evaluating the reliability of the source and authenticity of the story)

Now the Dangerous Situation...

Now, the most dangerous situation or, the deadliest individual uncontrollable by any force, parents, teachers, religion, culture, society, law or nation is - an individual or a group of individuals who declare & decide to, and want to be wrong!

Though this intention sounds as much evil as it is, there is also so much humility in that statement and an ocean’s depth of emotional maturity in this wanting to be wrong! There is no control of an individual who decides or fill themselves with the urge to be, say or act with an intention and purposefully wanting to be WRONG. We often hide this urge to sound familiar to this constructed (manipulated) world.

A paradigm shifted thinking...

If killing someone is wrong, how can criminals execution be right? Killing a human being is wrong, but well justified if this human being belongs to the other side of the border of your nation you are at war with. Is this not an epitome of hypocrisy? How can a WRONG be justified as CORRECT? Will two WRONG get to be one CORRECT ? How many are willing to accept and admit the truth or the urge, by saying "I 'am wrong" or, "I want to be wrong" This to me is the highest level of self-actualization, attainment of spiritual reality, transformed culture, and an essence of every religion that is till now a well camouflaged deception of human innocence.

The rare occurrence of admitting "I want to be wrong" can only happen when, there is a candid proclamation of mankind with an urge to be WRONG, and accepting that its ok to be wrong. After all our life is a dangle between all possible ideologies & justifications to prove ourselves to be CORRECT. ?Life in itself is an ambitious endeavor, and a journey from WRONG to CORRECT - embedded into various religious principles, cultural practices, professional ethos used as a feeder to thrive on. Religion is yet another big pointer to you with the glaring statement YOU ARE WRONG! because its the pivotal of every religion.

There's nothing wrong asking yourself this question. Don’t I have the freedom to be wrong? not sometimes, maybe but all the time?

YES! I WANT TO BE WRONG...

(Post a comment if you had an urge to be Wrong, but feared the unknown and avoided admitting it.)