The Lonely Person

When I was a kid, one adult said to me about another adult: “It must be so lonely to be the only person who’s right all the time.”

To me, then and now, this sounded like a devastating put-down.

This made me think about the importance of being right. Everyone likes to be right, I suppose — it’s human nature. But it made me question something I hadn’t thought to question: how important is it, really, to be right?

Is it more important than being kind? Is it more important than working hard? Or learning? Or listening? Or enjoying the company of other people?

I concluded that being right is not only less important than a whole bunch of other things, it actually gets in the way of other more important things.