Before You Assume You’re Right, Try This

February 09, 2024

Before you assume you’re right about anything, remember to ask this question. 

From Will Storr (as told to David McRaney, as relayed to Bogumil Baranowski):

Am I right about everything?

The answer is, “No.” It’s not even hard to say. Try it (we’ll say it together. 1, 2, 3 and) –

“I am most certainly and definitively not right about everything.”

One caveat: If you are right about everything, you a politician. Congratulations? Sure. But this isn’t for you. This is for the rest of us.

If you’re a human, and you are not right about EVERYTHING, thanks the gods, because now we can move on. 

We can move on to the way more important question,

“What am I wrong about?” 

Now we’re getting somewhere. How does it make you feel? It’s kind of hard to answer too, isn’t it? Even though you know it’s there. Lurking, peaking, tracking you – your wrongness is out there. LIke the Predator. Hey, mine is too – I can feel it as I type this post. 

This is intellectual humility. We aren’t right about anything. We’re wrong about things… all of the time. And we don’t die. We’re quite alright actually, even if we’re never all right. 

We are not so smart. And it’s a beautiful thing. At least it is if we remember it.