Being "Wrong"

"Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from."

--Al Franken

"Oh, the Things I Know," 2002

 

It is election season and I am a Facebook user; therefore, I have been exposed to a lot ideas and opinions that conflict with my own in the past few months. This time around, I decided to keep my opinions to myself and observe my own reactions and assumptions when someone thinks differently than me. It has been extremely eye-opening! 

During my observations of myself, I have often reflected on the following fascinating TED Talk by author Kathryn Schulz. I watched it over a year ago and loved it so much I purchased and read the corresponding book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. It is so interesting how very "right" she is about being wrong!  

What I learned about myself from simply paying attention to my thoughts and reactions with the "Series of Unfortunate Assumptions" in mind has helped me to be more tolerant and entertain different ideas without being offended by them. I have also learned to value the diversity of thought out there. It's incredible how we can all experience the same things and come away with as many different perspectives as there are stars in the sky! 

In the past, I have been guilty of making all three of the Unfortunate Assumptions (below). Have you? If so, have you ever wondered why? If you're brave enough to ask yourself the question, your answer will most likely shift your paradigm for the better, like it did mine. Enjoy!

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Excerpt from TED Talk, "On Being Wrong," by Kathryn Schulz. 

(Video of Talk in its entirety below excerpt.)  

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Think for a moment about what it means to feel right. It means that you think that your beliefs just perfectly reflect reality. And when you feel that way, you’ve got a problem to solve: How are you going to explain all of those people who disagree with you? It turns out most of us explain those people the same way -- by resorting to:

1. The Ignorance Assumption: They must not have the same information as you. 
2. The Idiocy Assumption: They have the same information, but are too moronic to put the pieces of the puzzle together properly.
3. The Evil Assumption: They know the truth and they are deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes.

This is a catastrophe! This attachment to our own rightness keeps us from preventing mistakes when we absolutely need to, and causes us to treat each other terribly. To me, what's most baffling and tragic about this is that it misses the whole point of being human. It's like we want to imagine that our minds are these perfectly translucent windows and we just kind of gaze out of them and describe the world as it unfolds. And we want everybody else to gaze out of the same window and see the exact same thing. That is not true! And if it were, the world would be incredibly boring!

 

The miracle of your mind isn’t that you can see the world as it is. It’s that you can see the world as it isn’t. We can remember the past, we can think about the future and we can imagine what it's like to be some other person, in some other place.

St. Augustine said, "Fallor ergo sum: I err, therefore I am." Augustine understood that our capacity to screw up - it's not some kind of embarrassing defect in the human system; something we can eradicate or overcome. It's totally fundamental to who we are.

We need to step out of that tiny, terrified space of "rightness" and look around at each other. And look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe. And be able to say, "Wow...I don't know...maybe I'm wrong."  

--Kathryn Schulz

Related Posts:  

Beauty and the Beast

Got Glue?

Success

 

"My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is within you. Success is being praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success." 

-- Helen Hayes

Magical Bank

Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest:  Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400.00 in a private account for your use.

However, this prize has rules, just as any game has certain rules.

The Rules:

1. Everything that you don’t spend during each day will be taken away from you.
2. You may not simply transfer money into some other account.  You may only spend it.
3. Each morning, the bank opens your account with another $86,400.00 for that day.
4. The bank can end the game without warning. It can close the account and you will not receive a new one.

What would you do?

You’d probably buy everything you wanted; not only for yourself, but for all people you love. Then you’d probably move on to people you don't know, because you couldn't possibly spend it all on yourself. And if you’re anything like me, you’d try to spend every cent every day because it’d be a waste not to use it all, right?

Well, actually…this game is REALITY! Each of us is already in possession of such a magical bank. We just can't seem to see it.

The magical bank is TIME! 

Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us.

What we haven't lived up that day is forever lost; yesterday is forever gone.

 

Each morning the account is refilled, but the Bank can dissolve your account at any time WITHOUT WARNING and you will not receive another. 

What will YOU do with your 86,400 seconds? They are worth so much more than the same amount in dollars, so don’t hold back; start spending now!

Got Glue?

This little ceramic plaque fell off my wall one day and was dashed to pieces on my ceramic tile floor. I was upset at first, but now that it's all glued back together I think it means more to me broken than it ever meant to me whole. 

I think the imperfections of the broken plaque add character and dimension and make the message more meaningful. Before it was just a nice reminder that I shouldn't let my imperfections stop me from doing things. But now whenever I look at it I am reminded that while I am broken, imperfect, and inadequate, with God's help I can be useful and valuable still the same--maybe even more so than if I were in perfect condition.

God's Grace is glue and wholeness only comes through Him. In fact, it is the "Him" inside each of us holding us together that qualifies us. If it were possible to be perfect without God, there would be no place for Him in our hearts. Then where would we be? A nice thought without real meaning? Knowledge without wisdom?

In that sense, I'm glad to be broken! It's the cracks and chinks that make people interesting, anyway. They give us dimension and depth as long as we have the Glue. Without the Glue though, we're just a bunch of broken, jumbled, meaningless pieces.

Related  Posts:  
Being Wrong

Beauty and the Beast

C.S. Lewis Sunday - A New Perspective

"Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse -- so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be. And immortality makes this other difference, which, by the by, has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment."

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Gratitude

I found this little concept extremely thought provoking. It completely changed the quality of my prayers and made me think of all the little things I take for granted every day. Apply it and see if it doesn't make your life feel a little lighter.

Wiseguy Wednesday - Your Call

I love this funny little story because it begs the question: Is Ego profitable or futile? Then illustrates the obvious answer. It's your call, indeed. Enjoy!
 
Through the pitch-black night, the captain sees a light dead ahead on a collision course with his ship. He sends a signal: "Change your course 10 degrees east."

The light signals back: "Change yours, 10 degrees west."

Angry, the captain sends: "I'm a Navy captain! Change your course, sir!"

"I'm a seaman, second class," comes the reply. "Change your course, sir."

Now the captain is furious. "I'm a battleship! I'm not changing my course!"

There's one last reply, "I'm a lighthouse. Your call."

--Dan Bell

Ocean Air

In honor of my 100th post, I'm going to break the quoting-other-people mold and wax poetic for a minute. I wrote the following poem because I looked up into the sky one day and saw an airplane that looked like a whale at first glance. It got me thinking about how the sky looked like the ocean and what can I say? The thought inspired me. I know it's totally amateur, but I hope you enjoy it.

Ocean Air

Gaze up to a sea of delicate blue

That billows and swells to horizon.

White froth floats by

On the breath of a sigh

The current stirs among the blades.

Is that a creature that floats on the breeze?

It drifts as if suspended by string.

A slow, gentle giant

With bountiful eye

That shines amid glint of the light.

What is this liquid that blows in my hair;

The tempest that tears at my clothes?

What is the flood

That streams from above

And swells and crests at my feet?

It is the air of the ocean deep;

The tears of innumerable stars.

The wind that blows by,

The aircraft that fly

And the showers that break on the sand.

--Melissa McGowan

"Now" - What Does it Mean?

I saw the following article today and it reminded me of a C.S. Lewis quote. It is a thought-provoking topic, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Where is Now? The Paradox Of The Present
by ADAM FRANK, July 26, 2011 (NPR.org/blogs, Category: Science and Philosophy)

The night sky is a time machine. Look out and you look back in time. But this "time travel by eyesight" is not just the province of astronomy. It's as close as the machine on which you are reading these words. Your present exists at the mercy of many overlapping pasts. So where, then, is "now"?

As almost everyone knows, when you stare into the depths of space you are also looking back in time. Catch a glimpse of a relatively nearby star and you see it as it existed when, perhaps, Lincoln was president (if it's 150 light-years away). Stars near the edge of our own galaxy are only seen as they appeared when the last ice age was in full bloom (30,000 light-years away). And those giant pinwheel assemblies of stars called galaxies are glimpsed, as they existed millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of years in the past.

We never see the sky as it is, but only as it was.

Stranger still, the sky we see at any moment defines not a single past but multiple overlapping pasts of different depths. The star's image from 100 years ago and the galaxy image from 100 million years ago reach us at the same time. All of those "thens" define the same "now" for us.

The multiple, foliated pasts comprising our present would be weird enough if it was just a matter of astronomy. But the simple truth is that every aspect of our personal "now" is a layered impression of a world already lost to the past.

To understand how this works, consider the simple fact, discussed in last week's post, that all we know about the world comes to us via signals: light waves, sound waves and electrical impulses running along our nerves. These signals move at a finite speed. It always takes some finite amount of time for the signal to travel from the world to your body's sensors (and on to your brain).

A distant galaxy, a distant mountain peak, the not very distant light fixture on the ceiling and even the intimacy of a loved one's face all live in the past. Those overlapping pasts are times that you — in your "now" — are no longer a part of.

Signal travel time constitutes a delay and all those overlapping delays constitute an essential separation. The inner world of your experience is, in a temporal sense, cut off from the outer world you inhabit.

Let's take a few examples. Light travels faster than any other entity in the physical universe, propagating with the tremendous velocity of c = 300,000,000 m/s. From high school physics you know that the time it takes a light signal moving at c to cross some distance D is simply t = D/c.

When you look at the mountain peak 30 kilometers away you see it not as it exists now but as it existed a 1/10,000 of a second ago. The light fixture three meters above your head is seen not as it exists now but as it was a hundred millionth of a second ago. Gazing into your partner's eyes, you see her (or him) not for who they are but for who they were 10-10 of a second in the past. Yes, these numbers are small. Their implication, however, is vast.

We live, each of us, trapped in our own now.

The simple conclusions described above derive, in their way, from relativity theory and they seem to spell the death knell for a philosophical stance called Presentism. According to Presentism only the present moment has ontological validity. In other words: only the present truly exists; only the present is real.

Presentism holds an intuitive sway for many people. It just feels right. For myself, when I try and explore the texture of my own experience, I can't help but feel a sense of the present's dominance. Buddhism, with its emphasis on contemplative introspection, has developed a sophisticated presentist stance concerning the nature of reality. "Anyone who has ever mediated for anytime" the abbot of a Zen monastery once told me "finds that the past and future are illusions."

Yes, but ...

The reality that even light travels at a finite speed forces us to confront the strange fact that, at best, the present exists at the fractured center of many overlapping pasts.

So where, then, are we in time? Where is our "now" and how does it live in the midst of a universe comprised of so many "thens"?

"Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today'. All the days are 'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'forsee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you're doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way -- because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him." 

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

It's a Great Big Universe

"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

--John Andrew Holmes

Maybe it’s just because it’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m trying to minimize the effect of my ego, but I wanted to share some perspective today.

Anyone who has spent any time looking up at the stars can not avoid observing the scale of the universe and how very small we are in comparison. It is debatable whether or not this feels good or bad, but I - for one - have found it encouraging to ponder the concept that I cannot possibly be the center of such vastness.  And while it does make me feel insignificant, I appreciate the lesson. I am grateful to be so small so that I may learn to forget myself. There are as many millions of other people in this world as there are whole galaxies in the firmament. What is my life but to love and serve others? That is the ONLY way I can make my life even remotely significant in the face of such vastness. And that is how it should be…I think. Enjoy!

BELOW IS A HUBBLE TELESCOPE ULTRA DEEP FIELD INFRARED VIEW OF COUNTLESS 'ENTIRE' GALAXIES BILLIONS OF LIGHT-YEARS AWAY:

  

This is a close up of one of the darkest regions of the photo above:

It all reminds me of my FAVORITE Animaniacs song:

Great...I'm gonna be singin' that one for the rest of the week! :)