The Strange Relief of Being Wrong

Being wrong is not pleasant. Most people avoid it — not just the mistake itself, but the admission. There is a kind of vulnerability in it. You are exposed, even if only to yourself. What you thought was certain is no longer reliable, and that can be unsettling.

But sometimes, being wrong brings a strange kind of relief. You realise that what you were holding onto — an assumption, a judgment, or a fear — is not as fixed as you thought. You expected something to go badly, and it did not. You assumed someone meant harm, and they did not. Just when you thought there was no hope, something changed.

It is not about pretending the mistake did not matter. Occasionally it did. But there is still something freeing in recognising that your view was incomplete — that the world is wider than the version you had in your head. It reminds you that certainty is not always a strength. You can revise your thinking without losing your identity.

Of course, it takes practice. The instinct to defend your position runs deep. This is particularly true when your sense of identity is tied to being competent, principled, or right. But over time, you start to see that letting go of a fixed idea does not make you weaker. It makes you more alive with what is actually there.

And in that small shift — from guarding your view to updating it — something about you relaxes.