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Being wrong

I don’t really know why but it seems that most of us would sooner damage ourselves, or at least our relationships and wellbeing than admit we are wrong. It was something I noticed very clearly in my children as they grew up, just how much they hated it if you ‘made them wrong’: and despite all the experience we acquire of being wrong as journey through Life, it doesn’t get any easier!

I don’t think it is helped by the fact that we live within our own little bubbles of reality* that are little worlds, complete unto themselves. We sit there minding our own business and then, like a fish lurking in the depths of a deep pool, our awareness is tugged at by someone else’s intrusion. In the world of objective reality, they have done nothing wrong, and like that fish, we rise to the surface and SNAP at the disturbance on the surface. As far as we are concerned, it is case closed.

However, often they experience something very different. They have just been attacked by someone they trust or even love… how horrid is that?! When it happens to us we grow to distrust, or at least be guarded around the people who do this to us; they aren’t safe. Yet most of us do it. In our own world’s we have done nothing wrong or nasty. In reality, we have responded inappropriately and are responsible for the consequences of our actions.

Even knowing all this, it is hard to explain to the self-righteous child within us all, that we have to apologise, especially if we are now being apparently attacked! Sitting here writing this, it is easy to see how stupid all this is; when we are the person trapped in this spiral it is usually much harder. I hope that if you are not one of the wise ones, who never make this kind of mistake that this might act as a little warning light on your ‘dashboard’ and keep you from hurting someone you love…

“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.” George Soros

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 08:59 and is filed under General, Personal Change, Values & Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Being wrong”

  1. Satin says:
    6 April , 2008 at 12:22

    Richard – most interesting blog, very welcome on a cold snowy Sunday morning.

    It made me wonder about why we behave in this way, and I guess the answer is ‘learnt behaviour’ e.g. childhood experience – most of us were never taught properly how to handle or give criticism, so we carry on as we were.

    For some, that ‘light on the dashboard’ begins to flash and we start to explore smarter ways of managing these events, then we start to grow and release ourselves from the chains.

    Tell me, what sort of techniques do you favour for working thru these situations ? It seems to me you quite like basic cognitive analysis, have you ever looked at hypnosis or anything else ?

  2. richardderwentcooke says:
    6 April , 2008 at 12:25

    Satin,
    Thank you for your thoughts and comments. I don’t know why we do this, though I suspect you are right and that it originates in childhood. The mystery is why doesn’t it get better, faster? I intend ot explore this theme and see if I (or we) can come up with some answers. I am no expert in this area. I have explored hypnosis both from the NLP point of view and have been to see a hypnotist for a while. I think anything we can do to increase our awareness in general and our self awareness in particular is likely to help… that and having someone close to you who tells you when you have screwed up!

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