One habit that isn’t feeling right is getting up and checking email first thing.
This morning, I started with writing by hand on paper. This connected thought with body, translating my mind pictures into words with two fingers and a thumb, making symbols on thin sheets of tree remnants.
The crows were calling in the ash trees, the bumblebees were buzzing in the nasturtiums, the gray squirrel rapped his paw on the porch ledge for peanuts. The two cats that live here wanted their meal.
I’ve been thinking about the making of mistakes and wrote about that to myself. A few days later, a friend sent me this quote by Dogen Zenji, “A Zen master’s life is one continuous mistake.”
The other day, I realized I had made a couple of inaccurate statements recently. It wasn’t like these statements were in the news or in a courtroom, but I didn’t like knowing I said a wrong thing with a tone of authority. They were casual conversations, but I still wanted to correct myself.
I need a couple things to make corrections: a person who will hear me and some eagerness on my part to expose my mistake.
Once those are in place, I could do it all day as it feels very freeing. If fact it’s so great that it gave me an idea.
My idea is that we create a holiday that celebrates making mistakes. It could also be called Being Wrong Day.
How about setting aside a day to celebrate when we’ve made an error, a mistake, a wrong. It’s National Wrong Day, and everyone gets together for dinner and shares stories of goofy understandings that turned out to
be incorrect.
Now it’s your time to shine in the light of open correction.
It could also be about things like outgrowing an opinion, or judging someone or something prior to understanding the someone or something.
You need the right people to tell. I have friends I can tell, “Oh, that thing I said was actually not accurate. I made a mistake.” And they say, ok, and they listen. I feel an energy burst from this. It feels good.
I can, without shame, re-examine something and carve out more of the truth. Others sometimes know a little bit more than I know.
It’s becoming less embarrassing to make mistakes and more empowering to seek accuracy and truth.
Being wrong and admitting it releases the general stored tension amongst each other. To be openly wrong, retrospectively, clears the path forward of all the backed-up debris from prior misperceptions.
This movement of admitting mistakes would be all-inclusive. No one would be left out.
Updating understanding is an act of perseverance.
Not everything needs updating all the time. I think one reason people are so stressed out and distracted is they are in search of 100% correct answers and solutions, of which there are few. ~~~
Mary Ann Petersen is a member of Eugene Friends Meeting (NPYM). This article was adapted from her blog: https://maryannpetersen.substack.com