Please be Wrong From Time To Time

Please be Wrong From Time to Time

John Paul Derryberry

Show me a 22-year-old who admits they're wrong a lot about life, and I will show you someone I worry about for their future. We are wired to be so hopeful at 22 that being wrong does not enter the thought process. Show me someone with a few years lived who can't admit they are wrong, and I will show you someone everyone should stay far away from. Part of growing through life is being humbled by how wrong you were about stuff. I’m no different; my journey with tackling my depressive thoughts started with a conversation with my brother in the backyard of our home. I was 22 years old, dealing with a high-symptom period of I should not be alive thoughts, I’m not worthy of life, and I should quit.

It wasn’t until my brother strung together some wise words that I realized I was wrong about how I was thinking through my problems. We all do this, don't we? We all look in the mirror and have these moments of "I can't possibly be wrong."  Whether that is about your job, your relationships, whether people like you, the body image you carry, or just whether you should exist or not. A lot of life depends on us being wrong; if we're brave enough, we step into the arena and be wrong.  I know it did wonders for me. I thought it would shatter my confidence in my own abilities, and in some regard it did. But in other ways, admitting I was wrong stripped away all the rotten stuff of always having to be right. What was left was something I could build my life around.

All this started for me in 2005, and in a million ways, it is way harder in 2026 to admit we are wrong. So much of life is so public now; so many people are willing to pounce, exploit each of our decisions as a mistake, and dissect them through their lens. It’s easier to plant your feet and scream I was right, and you are all wrong. Even the best intentions, once they go out into the world, can receive comments when, in previous generations, keyboard comments wouldn't have existed. And the fact is, we all get stuff wrong all the time. We think people left us out when they didn’t. We think people hate us when maybe they have decided our personality isn’t their cup of tea. We think people judge us by how we look, or by countless other ways we interact. We could be wrong about our interpretation.

The crazy part is pushing through the fact that people do leave us out; people will not like us, people will judge our looks, and countless interactions will lead people to decide how to interact with us. It’s super easy to read those statements above, stick our heads in the sand, and say everyone else is wrong and we are not. Yet life at its best is when we gain knowledge and are proven wrong. We get new experience, fresh perspectives, new energy, and a greater understanding of life. All of that exists in our ability to ask ourselves, what if I am wrong? And when I'm around people who can’t do that, I ask: if we can’t be wrong, how the heck do we figure out how to be correct?