Wrong — And Loving It!

If you are anything like me, and it’s probably best if you’re not, you love being wrong.

Wait – What?

I said what I said.

Why?

I’m glad you asked.

Of course, being wrong is not always pleasant. I hated living on a dairy farm – the stench, the filth, the endless toil, the monotony, the dangers – so when I learned people could leave farming for other forms of business, I expected my father to experience an epiphany (though I did not yet know that word – I was only 5), and start packing our belongings.

I was wrong. He loved farming.

Disappointment haunted all my dreams.

But my father also triggered an epiphany for me. Confused as to why I cheered when a movie depicted a calvary charge that would kill all the Indigenous Peoples attacking a wagon train, he contradicted my verdict that Natives were “the bad guys.” 

“No,” he said. “They are the good guys.”

I thought it was a Dad Joke.

He went on to explain that the Indigenous Peoples had always lived here, surviving for thousands of years, until White men invaded and stole their land and their lives.

I was stunned.

Being wrong on that occasion changed my life. Forever.

It provided a new perspective – not limited to that particular example, but on all assumptions, premises, beliefs, paradigms. Again, at 5, I didn’t have that vocabulary, but the effect was the same.

Of course it can be painful to realize I am wrong, and there is often real discomfort in admitting my mistake, but every admittance empowers me to question more.

I developed a system. A system of letting go. A system of defeating attachment to the familiar. Facing the brutal truth that I was wrong allowed a new truth to bloom. 

All the while realizing my newly earned “truth” may, in time, be revealed to be wrong.

That system of questioning, examining, defining, stretching beyond accepted certitude, ultimately permitted my Becoming Super Rog.

As I work out the details through a collection of essays, I will share my progress with you, starting with, Where am I now?