Willingness to be Wrong
It’s hard to be wrong.
However, for some, it’s not as hard to be open to being wrong, as the pain lies in the future and if it’s in the future, it might not exist at all. For others, the potential of pain in the future is worse that pain in the present.
Being wrong creates cognitive dissonance. If I’m wrong about what I thought in the past, the thinking goes, what else am I wrong about now? This can lead one to question one’s very reality.
However, what if we left ourselves an escape route for our ego? “Based on the information I had at the time, I thought x. Now that I see something new, I can come to conclusion y.” This is near universally applicable.
For this to work, though, there actually needs to be some information we can ingest that would change our mind. If there is no amount of information that could be given, then we are unwilling to have our minds changed and to be wrong.
It’s OK to hold strongly to a few convictions as long as we’re honest with ourselves. For other beliefs, the more we’re willing to have our minds changed that more opportunity for us to grow.
