There is too much emphasis on being right.
We are encouraged to make the right decisions. We are told to believe the right things about God. We need to be right and when we encounter someone who thinks differently, they must be wrong. Being wrong is the greatest sin we can commit.
Which is ludicrous in the extreme.
Not only are we certainly wrong about many of our decisions, beliefs, and opinions, but our obsession with our own rightness will run roughshod over our ability to be kind, to love, to hold, to feel with, to enter into a moment, to communion with another person. Being right separates us.
I am going to do my best to let go of being right and try instead to be kind, joyful, and loving.
Thought about this today because I am currently reading "A Failure of Nerve". In this book, Friedman points out the tremendous importance of failure (of being okay with being wrong). Ultimately, if we are never okay with being wrong, we can have no imagination. It's not just that we fail to be kind or love or those things. Yes, it's true that in being "right", I can run roughshod over people. But it is also that we fail to have imagination.
ReplyDeleteStrongly encourage you to read that book. It might be very encouraging and releasing for an artist like yourself.