Our love of being right is best understood as our fear of being wrong
Interpretation
Our desire to be correct often stems from a deep-seated fear of making mistakes.
This quote highlights the psychological aspect of human pride and insecurity. It suggests that the strong inclination many individuals have to assert their correctness in conversations or debates is influenced by an underlying fear of being wrong, which can be tied to vulnerability and the consequences that come with making mistakes. Understanding this can encourage more open-mindedness and acceptance of differing views in discussions.
In practice
In a discussion about relationships, one might say this quote to highlight how pride can hinder communication.
As a kid, I lived almost entirely inside books, and eventually the books started returning the favor. A lot of my internal world feels like an anthology, or a library. It's eclectic and disorganized, but I can browse in it, and that hugely shapes both what and how I write.
The point isnβt to live without any regrets. The point is to not hate ourselves for having them.
To err is to wander, and wandering is the way we discover the world; and, lost in thought, it is also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying, but in the end it is static, a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey, and a story.
We're terrified of not having the answers, and we would sometimes rather assert an incorrect answer than make our peace with the fact that we really don't know.
Regret doesn't remind us that we did badly. It reminds us that we know we can do better.
The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.
Love and work are the only two real things in our lives. They belong together, otherwise it is off. Work is in itself a form of love.
That kind of love - the kind you realize you already have by the life you've created together - that's the kind that lasts.
I could have waited years, now that I knew the end of the story. I was cold and wet and very happy. I could even look with charity towards the altar and the figure dangling there. She loves us both, I thought, but if there is to be a conflict between an image and a man, I know who will win. I could put my hand on her thigh or my mouth on her breast; he was imprisoned behind the altar and couldn't move to plead his cause.
The root of the matter is a very simple and old fashioned thing... love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.
Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.
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