“If you’re trying too hard to convince everyone around you that you’re right, you’re probably wrong.”  Anonymous

There was a time when one of the most important things to me was being right all of the time.  Even when I knew inside that I was wrong, I continued to indignantly argue that I was right.  To feel good about myself, I needed to be right, to know just a little more, be just a little smarter than everyone else.  Thinking about the amount of time and energy that I wasted on this insane behavior makes me a little sad, but I guess I had to go through it to be where I am now.

Happily, I am now at a point where I no longer have that obsessive need to be right in every argument or situation.  I believe that the transformation came with a combination of age and acceptance.  However it happened, I’m just glad that it did, and I’m not willing to spend any time trying to figure out exactly how or when or why.  The important thing is that I enjoy freedom now that I didn’t even know existed before.

I have the freedom to simply say, “Oops, I messed up,” or “Sorry, I was wrong,” or “I don’t know.”  And this freedom is one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.  I am no longer on guard all the time, and I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.  There was just too much stress and worry associated with “being right” all the time.  I understand and accept now that people are just that, people.

Feeling good about myself now means accepting myself for who and what I am, no more and no less.  I don’t worry about what other people think of me, and I honestly don’t care who thinks I’m right and who thinks I’m wrong.  It doesn’t matter to me if anyone else thinks I’m smart, and it’s liberating to admit that I’m not nearly as smart as I thought I was in my younger years.  I am completely free to be me now, a human being who makes mistakes, is often wrong, and that is just fine with me!