My worst fear: I'm sitting in class, trying to focus on what the teacher is explaining and suddenly, she stops. We make eye contact, and it's down hill from there. She begins to ask a question,
"What themes are present in the letter?"
Oh, that's simple – there are themes of love, compassion, and isolation. That's what I come up with in my mind, but something stops me from speaking out loud. What's holding me back? I mean it's written right there in black and white. I sit there for a few seconds, but instead of answering, I freeze. My palms start sweating, my face gets red and I feel like every single eye in the room is on me.
What in the world is stopping me from answering? Cat got my tongue? I wish, that would be an easy explanation. No, this is something deeper, something that is extremely hard to explain to people. It's the reason I am scared to speak my mind, the reason I am afraid to answer a question, the reason I am terrified to get into a heated discussion with anyone, the reason I simply nod my head when people talk whether I agree with them or not. I am afraid to be wrong.
Society has created this stigma around being wrong, no matter how little or big the wrong might be. It starts from a young age. Maybe it was the time the teacher gives your quiz back and you see the bad grade in thick, red writing. Then, of course someone asks you what you got on the assignment. As you try to hide the score on the test, you turn to your classmate and say "Oh, I only missed one," but in reality, you really missed 10 out of 20. Or maybe it was the time where you answered a question wrong in class and everyone started laughing. What about the time your best friend told you that your idea was dumb? Or maybe even none of the above.
No matter what created that idea in the back of your mind, it's there and it's stuck. Sure, there are those who can be wrong, turn right back around and keep going, but then there are people like me who take time to bounce back. I'm here to tell you that this is okay. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay to make mistakes and even to admit them. It's even okay to take some time to pick yourself back up after something goes wrong.
Being wrong sucks, I'm not trying to desensitize the feeling of being wrong, but the way you handle it is what makes the difference. If you are never okay with being wrong, it's much harder to come up with original ideas or push the boundaries of the cookie cutter image society places on us. Success comes from people being wrong and learning from the mistakes.
Question ideas, come up with your own theories, answer a question every once in awhile. Who knows, it could be the difference between a brilliant idea that would have never been shared or a question that may never be answered unless you take a chance. We are human, we make mistakes, it's okay to be wrong just as long as we pick ourselves up and keep going. It takes time to figure out how to be wrong, but I promise, it will be okay.
