The phrase “I was wrong” is sometimes hard to say, even when we see how much defending our mistakes costs us. Not because we don’t see our mistake, but because we believe that admitting it will make us seem smaller. But the opposite is true.
The costliest mistakes in life aren’t the ones we make. The costliest are the ones we defend. How many marriages have fallen apart because no one was willing to be the first to say, “I was in the wrong.” How many friendships have ended because pride was more important than the relationship. How many companies have failed because executives defended a bad decision for months simply because it was theirs? How many countries are still paying the price today for decisions that many knew were wrong, but no one had the courage to reverse?
Pride is a strange thing. It gives a person the feeling of having won, while at the same time, almost imperceptibly, it takes away what made the victory worthwhile. It preserves one’s dignity in front of others, but it often distances one from those who mattered most.
It’s interesting that we teach children to admit their mistakes, while adults spend almost their entire lives perfecting ways to justify them. They look for someone to blame in the circumstances, the timing, others, or the system—just not in themselves. As if it were easier to lose a relationship than to admit you were once wrong.
Perhaps that’s why we have so many debates today, yet so little dialogue. Everyone wants to be right, and there are fewer and fewer people who truly care about the truth.
Perhaps maturity isn’t the moment when you stop making mistakes. Perhaps maturity is the moment when it no longer matters to you to appear infallible. Admitting a mistake won’t, in and of itself, repair a relationship.
But without it, there’s often no discussion at all about what needs to change.
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