Is It Wrong To Want To Be Right?

Burning the midnight oil… has nothing to do with this. Read on!  (Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/

The other day I was feeling all go-getter in the morning at work.  Didn’t even have my coffee, yet, and I was blazing saddles like a madman!  Jumping all over a priority and special request from our customer.  Trying to prove to my customer (and new coworkers!) that I could really beef up the customer satisfaction aspect of this shindig.

Flying through 95% of all that needed to get done… I did my sanity checks, did my process-flow checks, and made sure the customer was happy with the drafts before going through the official channels.  This big-bad-boy was cocked and ready to fire!

Packet in hand, headed to the next step in the process, my senior colleague approaches in just about as much of a hurry as I was.

ME: “Hey, what’s going on?”

HIM: “Not much – dark over here, eh?” …we don’t like turning on the lights until noon.  Keeps it festive.

ME: “Yeah, haha.  I’ve got this request all done and ready to go for our customer – let’s do it!”

HIM: “Ummm.. why are you working on that?”

ME: *blank stare*

HIM: “Anyway, let’s get back to this priority task I was bringing over.”

Dipping into “Fight-Club” monologue mode: “I am not Richard’s completely flabbergasted and deflated left-kidney.”

Questions Are Hard – Do I Have to Think?

What does it mean to be wrong?  Is this just some form of battle against our ego or another small nick in the ego-armor our teenage years has given us?  Why do we care about being right?

These are just a few of the questions that are coming to my mind now.  I recently read the book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz, and the biggest thing that seemed to keep banging me over the head was… why does being wrong affect me in the way it does?

Sure, there’s the factual, actual, whatever that happens, which could spell out big-time badness for finances, health, or overall-life-enjoyment.  It’s the emotional side of it that keeps getting to me.

What does getting upset when I am challenged or questioned really do for me?  Does it make me feel better?  Does it justify my being wrong?  How do I come to grips with the fact that I am not entirely content enough with my current self to allow a greater introspection to happen without getting defensive?

Wrong Is the New Right!

You know – there may be bigger and better interpretations of what the story of the Phoenix really means… but I’d like to focus on what I get out of it in my middle aged journey thus far.

The standard, the norm, the regular – it exists and goes about in all of its glorious hum-drum capacity.  Until one day, some form of downfall or error plops you right to the very bottom of the barrel.  The cold, empty, lonely bottom of a barrel most people are probably more familiar with than they’d care to admit.

But something’s different at the bottom of this barrel.  There’s a note, neatly tucked away at the edge of the lower rim.  Folded just such a way to hide the message inside, but not tight enough to discourage the reader to check it out.

You reach down, brushing your hand across the cold, rough concrete floor and swipe up the note.  Slowly the sharp creases unfold and even more slowly reveal portions of the message one achingly anxious crumpled noise at a time.  The note is fully open, flattened (though textured in all its un-rumpled glory) and it reads: “You crashed and burned, move on and learn.”

Recharged, reborn, transformed into a magnificently fiery new creature, the Phoenix flies away to new heights never before reached… taking his new learning with him, now.  Without the steps taken (purposeful or accidental), he would not have had the opportunity to learn and grow.

So as I sat there, dumbfounded and wondering what went wrong with my customer’s project, I realized something… my colleague was right!  I had been too focused on this project and his task was a greater priority.  But best of all… I remained calm, composed, professional, not offended, and learned… grew up and sprouted another feather on my own little pair of fiery wings… realizing that an event is an event and not a judgement of me or my self-worth… I choose how to respond at all times, now.

Dare to be wrong, and promise to learn.  Comment 1 thing you did wrong last week that you learned from.  We could use the help.