Kathryn Shulz: On Being Wrong

Kathryn Shulz: It's okay to be wrong



Kathryn Shulz's talk was very inspirational because it made one think of how they live and make their decisions in a totally opposite way than the norm. We are used to being right, and dislike it when we are proven wrong.

When I was in elementary school, the way any student succeeded is if they did work based on what grades they got, because that was what's right. In many schools, it is still like that today. It is almost as if the school systems conform students to be the perfect over-achieving hard-worker because that is what's right in society. Our culture also teaches us to shun those who are wrong, who fail their tests and projects, because they are the losers who can't do anything right. Kathryn Shulz flips that prospective over into one where it's okay to be wrong. She says that from a young age, people live in a "Bubble of Rightness" where you live in the present and you're always right. Shulz wants us to break out of that bubble and embrace the wrong.

Shulz said that what's scary is not actually BEING wrong, but REALIZING you're wrong. She compared this to the childhood show about the coyote and the roadrunner. The coyote runs off the cliff and he keeps running until he looks down, and that's when he falls. That is a perfect example of how we are. Even when we are wrong, we are so convinced we are in the right that we're walking on air. It's the realization that's embarrassing, because when one realizes they were wrong they feel like there is something wrong with themselves. There is nothing wrong with you if you are wrong. It just shows that humans are not perfect. Kathryn said that our minds are amazing, because they do not allow us to see what the world is, but what it isn't. The problem is, it is human nature to want to know more.

The funny thing to me is that our culture enjoys stories of mistakes someone has made. We enjoy stories because they make those mistakes laughable, and something you can look back on and learn from. So why can't we apply enjoying the story to enjoying the real wrongs in life?

I found Shulz to be very interesting to listen to. She wasn't the most charismatic person, however there was something in her voice that showed how passionate about the subject she is, and how she wants us to realize that it is okay to be wrong. That is what I feel made her remarkable. She ended her talk by saying sometimes all we have to do is step out of that "Bubble of Rightness" into something we don't know. To look up at the vast universe around us and say, "Wow, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong."