Let Other People Be Wrong

It's A Practice That Takes Practice

Have you ever sat in a restaurant, trying to enjoy your meal, when you overheard someone at the table next to you saying something that you know is simply not true? Like, maybe they’re repeating some internet talking point, but since you obsessively read the news as though it’s your God, you’re one talking point ahead of them and what they’re spouting has been thoroughly debunked? Have you wanted to lean over, tip your imaginary fedora, and say, “Well, actually, about that…”

OF COURSE YOU HAVEN’T. Who would do that?

I would. Or, rather, I would, if I listened to the needling, annoying, compulsive voice deep inside me that simply cannot stand it when other people are wrong. When folks say stuff that’s not true, have a bad opinion, or don’t have the full picture, my inner know-it-all writhes in pain, desperately trying to get me to set the record straight.

People like me, with this affliction, we find each other. You’ll see us at parties when everyone else is having fun, off in corner, furiously debating something on the very edge of civility. You’ll see us on the internet, arguing back and forth. We smell the compulsion to be right in each other and we draw it out like a poison.

I learned a while ago to utter a simple prayer to short-circuit this defect. If you don’t believe in God, you can still use this prayer, just make it a mantra: “Let me let other people be wrong.”

I love this prayer because it quiets the part of me that has to be right and has to make everyone else be right too. Trying to be helpful (right), I shared this prayer with a friend, he burst out laughing.

“Why is that funny?”

“There’s no humility at all! I thought you were going to pray for the understanding that you might be wrong, but this prayer doesn’t even leave that as a possibility.”

“Oh,” I said, with a wince, “You’re right.”