Writing about my situation at the coffee shop the other day didn’t make me feel better. Being told I handled it well didn’t change my opinion either. I was really rattled, and it bothered me that I was. But the kids still had to have baths and get tucked in, the dishes still needed to be washed, American Idol elimination results still needed to be watched without commercial interruptions; in the midst of a life in progress on a Thursday night, I got my AHA!
***
I’m an active Facebook user and I engage in it pretty frequently in my day to day. On that Thursday night, as I scanned my Facebook feed while delaying my American Idol results viewing (and simultaneously seething reflecting on the conflict earlier in the day), a handful of friends had posted SHOCKING SPOILERS!
Of course it isn’t life or death to know something before you intend to know it (or even to save the comfy chair when someone else wants to sit there); in practicality, knowing the results in advance saved me an hour of TV time, but the surprise is part of the fun for me, just like talking about as soon as possible is part of the fun for someone else. It’s not something I would do, but it happened. It’s a failure in the invocation of The Golden Rule. What bothers me doesn’t necessarily bother you, but it still bothers me and that doesn’t make me wrong or you wrong either.
***
As a recovering perfectionist, the idea of being wrong doesn’t always sit well with me, but I’ve opened up a lot. In my work, ANY and EVERY time I lead a workshop or begin a coaching relationship, I start with one simple rule: no one gets to be wrong. Not you, not me. You might not like your results, and I might try something that doesn’t work but it doesn’t make us, or what happened, wrong.
What’s even better? There is something beautifully right in being wrong, too. After watching this TED Talk and getting its core message (I thought one thing was going to happen, but instead, something else did), I began to consider a hundred different things that didn’t happen the way I thought they would, and how my life is better for both the things that have happened and the amazing and wonderful things that didn’t.
I might start looking for ways to be wrong just to see what happens.
Zen Habits: 18 Practical Tips for Living the Golden Rule
