It was a lazy summer day when my good friend, Kat, and I were discussing colleges. Kat, having not quite graduated high school yet, was wondering what schools to look into. That was when I suggesting looking into the University of Georgia, but instead of giving the formal name of the university, I said the shorthand acronym: "UGA."

This is where our disagreement began. Kat looked confused, "UGA?" she said, pronouncing the word phonetically, like "Oo-gah."

"Yeah, it's the University of Georgia up in Atlanta." I explained and then decided I would go the extra mile and correct their pronunciation also, "And you would say it like, 'Uh-gah.'"

I assumed my correction would be taken without contest, after all, I am so rarely wrong. However, to my surprise, Kat stayed stubborn. "No, it would be pronouced like 'Oo-guh' or maybe 'Yew-guh' but not 'Uh-guh'" she said.

"No, that's wrong."

"No, I'm right. You're wrong!"

In a few moments, it had turned from simple disagreement into a bitter feud, and I was determined to prove my contention as correct. So I snatched up a pencil and grabbed a sheet of paper and spelled it out for her. "Look, the 'U' would make the short 'U' sound like in the word..." I trailed off. I had written the letters "U" and "M" of the word "umami," when I realized that in "umami," the "U" makes a long U sound, not the short "U" sound I was trying to prove right.

I still believed I was right, though. After all, umami isn't even originally English, so it probably wouldn't follow the rules of the language, right?

Kat suggested "Uganda" as evidence of her side, but I refuted it, saying that the names of foreign countries didn't necessarily follow the rules of English. I hid behind the example of "Iraq," whose "Q" isn't followed by a "U" as is typical in English.

I continued to search through words in my head, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to realize a pattern. When two vowels were separated by one consonant, the first vowel would make a long sound, but if there was just one vowel it typically made a short sound. There were exceptions of course, such as "lemon," but nothing that would prove "UGA" shouldn't be said like "Oo-guh."

The argument grew more heated until in a sudden epiphany I thought of the word to prove myself right. I grabbed a pen and began to scribble down the letters with a smug grin of triumph.

"F-R-U-G-L-E"

You see, in an embarrassing misspelling that defines my dependence on autocorrect, I thought I had spelled the word "frugal." I thought I had done it! There was a letter "U" surrounded on both sides by two consonants, but it made a long-U sound! Therefore, the rule couldn't be trusted. I thought I had won the argument.

My heart (and ego) sank as Kat pointed out my flaw. Frugal was spelled "F-R-U-G-A-L" not "F-R-U-G-L-E." Not only had I misspelled the word, but I'd provided the perfect word to destroy my own argument. "Frugal" had the exact acronym we were debating inside it: "UGA," and just like Kat had said, it made the long U sound.

I was humiliated. Through my stubbornness I had turned what could have been a simple phonetic correction into an embarrassing defeat and a display of my own dogmatic tendencies. I should have stopped at "umami." I should have realized that all the evidence was against me, and considered the fact that I may have been wrong, rather than press on with my faulty argument until I was proven wrong.

This kind of occurrence shows exactly why just accepting when you're wrong isn't enough. See, most people aren't going to even consider being wrong until it's absolutely proved that they aren't right. However, most of the time, we aren't going to be proved absolutely wrong. There will generally always be a way for us to escape correction and keep on believing in false notions. A better message than "accept when you're wrong" would be "constantly reevaluate your opinions and actions and compare them to reality to find your mistakes, and correct them."

Admittedly, it's more of a mouthful, but it is a much better way of thinking, and it will strengthen your arguments, improve your ability to assess reality, and make you a better person in general.

Constant evaluation of our opinions is something that is crucial for us because while my specific example may be a trivial phonetics disagreement, not evaluating one's own opinions on a larger scale can lead to some serious issues. This ability to judge what we say and do by comparing it to the realities around us is something that must be done independently and continuously. So many things that our generation wishes to fight -- racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, and more -- are much more easily defeated when this talent is used. For example, as a white person, I will continue to allow and benefit from racism unless I can look at my actions and opinions and correct myself, accordingly.

We live under the pretense that we are right until proven wrong, but when we consider how complex the world is, and how little we know and have experienced, it seems obvious that each one of us is going to be wrong about quite a lot.

If we keep this in mind, it will help us all to be a little more "right," and hopefully make the world that much more of a better place.