One Cool Free Idea

Like most people in Western culture, I grew up with a fairly embedded sense that the “smart” approach to life meant identifying and pursuing some “right” path, which would be scattered with “right” decisions that would somehow lead you unscathed to the “right” place, job, home, career, and life. Problem with this, of course, is there is no such thing. And beyond, having that right-only frame of mind doesn’t help develop any sense of trial and error. You actually become quite blocked creatively and intellectually since you’re always seeking validation; superiority and credit for being “right” and “perfect.” I know from personal experience, that this fear of wrong can form some pretty debilitating habits of mind — and none of them are going to fast track you to any kind of personal or professional evolution.

Kathryn Schulz is author of “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error,” and writes a Slate series interviewing high-profile people about how they think and process wrongness.

I love this whole idea of being a “Wrongologist.” For embracing our fallibility. For taking a bit of a wabi sabi approach to living, in which the imperfect is upheld and the impermanent appreciated.