Being Right

We have a problem.

We are incredibly attached to being right.   

If you ask me, this is the greatest threat to humanity right now. 

The psychological need to be right is rooted in fear and insecurity.  It is the flagpole we grab onto in the tornado.  It is our mind’s way of reserving resources needed for urgent and novel risks.  If we can be sure of what we know, then we can know how to position ourselves in the chaos.

We feel personally assaulted when someone else believes we are wrong.  In some ways, it IS a psychological assault.  Our psyche is screaming “Hey asshole, I need to trust that I’m right or I might fall apart!” 

Try to imagine if a hurricane ripped through your community and you believed the safest way out was to drive North.  But then someone says it’s safer to go South.  Or even worse, they say you’re not actually heading North when you think you are.  You might become paralyzed and overwhelmed.  You might be at serious risk if you don’t know.  If you can’t trust that you’re right you could be in danger.  The mind has developed a way of clinging to what we have decided is true.

So, because we are terrified.  Because we are surrounded by new risks that we don’t fully understand.  Because we are soaking our brains in media meant to escalate our most primitive feelings.... we scream at each other across the invisible connections that span our globe. 

But.

 We’re not really screaming about what we think we are screaming about.

 We are screaming “I’m scared, I don’t know who to trust, I don’t know what is real and I need to believe I know something for sure.”

I wish we would say those words instead. 

But we don’t.  We scream “You’re ignorant”.  We scream “If they believe that they deserve to die”.  We scream “You’re a bad person.”

And we become the evil other.  The other that is easy to dismiss.  The other that is easy to vilify.  The other that is easy to dehumanize.  The other that I must solidly stand against.  We make the world a more dangerous place.  And we become more afraid.  And we feel more committed to being right.  We regress to a stage of development most people moved through before starting kindergarten.

 My patients have asked me some version of this question frequently this year.  “How do you see this getting sorted out, Lara?”  “How do you have hope?  Or do you?”

The honest answer?  In my worst days I think we’re doomed to destroy each other.  That this problem will lead to our end as a species.

 In my best days I think maybe, just maybe we’ll all get sick of how this feels and do it differently.  We’ll break our addiction to these intense feelings that are being fed to us in clickbait articles and provocative and overly simplistic memes.  We’ll notice when articles are intentionally biased and activating our primitive emotions and we’ll walk away as soon as we see it.  We’ll get back to the business of humanizing each other. 

 Maybe then we can feel safe enough to consider that we might not be right.  I wonder how many of us can capture a memory of a feeling of when it felt like NOT being right actually felt safer.  Being a learner.  Being curious.  Being flexible. 

In my best days I think maybe we’ll hit a breaking point where we all feel how dangerous being “right” is.  And how deeply connecting and safe it is to be wrong and to admit that we were and still be loved and respected.  Or how deeply enriching it is to feel solid in our position for us... but understanding of another’s position for them.

If you’re asking me....

If you want to save the world, start with you.  And start here.