You are wrong about everything and so am I expect God and His Word.
Why Being Wrong Is the Only Way to Grow
You are wrong about most things.
So am I.
And that’s not a flaw—it’s the path forward.
We like to believe we’ve got life figured out. That our opinions are well-informed. That our worldview is the right one. But history says otherwise. So does personal experience.
Scientists believed the earth was flat. They believed the atom is indivisible. People believed that the sun rises and sets. They believed that it is the heart that is responsible for the feeling of love. They were all wrong. But here’s the real question: does being wrong make it bad?
The Child Who Believed in River Babies
When I was a kid, I believed some pretty strange things. One of those things was that babies came from rivers. My grandmother told me so, and it made perfect sense at the time. Why else would she say it? I didn’t question it. I didn’t think I needed to.
Looking back now, I laugh at myself. It seems absurd, right? But that belief wasn’t a sign of stupidity—it was just a part of being young, of being wrong and growing. The funny thing is, we all had beliefs like that growing up—things we thought were true without ever really questioning them.
And you know what? The things you believe now? The things I believe now? One day, you’ll look back at them and laugh too. Because just like that child who thought babies came from rivers, what we hold as truth today might be just as laughable in the future.
But that’s okay. That’s how we grow. That’s how we learn. We don’t get to the truth all at once. We get there, bits by bits, through a series of mistakes, of being wrong over and over again. And the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can start truly evolving. And my friend, always remember, the species which evolves, survives. Period.
Mark Manson sums it up perfectly:
“Every step of the way I was wrong. About everything. Throughout my life, I’ve been flat-out wrong about myself, others, society, culture, the world, the universe – everything. And I hope that will continue to be the case for the rest of my life.
Just as Present Mark can look back on Past Mark’s every flaw and mistake, one-day Future Mark will look back on Present Mark’s assumptions(including the contents of this book) and notice similar flaws. And that will be a good thing. Because that will mean that I have grown.
There is a famous Michael Jordan quote about him failing over and over and over again, and that’s why he succeeded. Well, I’m always wrong about everything over and over and over again, and that’s why my life improves.”
Scientists Are Wrong:
It’s easy to think that scientists have everything figured out—that their understanding of the world is absolute, final, and unchanging. But history tells a different story. The truth is, scientists have been wrong again and again, and that’s exactly why science progresses.
Take the atom, for example. For centuries, scientists thought the atom was indivisible. Democritus, in ancient Greece, proposed this idea. He was wrong, but his mistake wasn’t a failure—it was a step toward understanding. Later, John Dalton claimed atoms of the same element were identical. Also wrong. Then, J.J. Thomson introduced the idea of the atom as a positively charged sphere with electrons embedded in it—still wrong, but less wrong than the previous models.
It doesn’t stop there. Ernest Rutherford’s model of the atom was flawed too, and Niels Bohr’s model was wrong in ways we can’t ignore today. Yet, each wrong turn brought us closer to the truth.
What does this tell us? That being wrong isn’t the end. It’s just part of the process. With every wrong theory, science gets a little closer to the truth. Progress doesn’t happen when we’re right—it happens when we’re wrong, and we learn from it.
Just like science, we’re all wrong in our own ways. The trick is to keep learning from those mistakes, moving from “wrong” to “slightly less wrong” until we eventually reach a better understanding. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progression.
Problem with Authors and Artists:
The truth is, many authors and artists look back at their early work and cringe. Even the greatest creators weren’t immune to this.
Take Picasso, for example—arguably one of the most revolutionary artists in history. His name alone commands a fortune today, with some of his paintings selling for hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet, his early paintings, though technically impressive, don’t compare to the groundbreaking work that would later define his career.
Picasso, like all artists, evolved through experimentation, trial, and, yes, failure. His mistakes weren’t signs of incompetence—they were necessary steps on his path to mastery. As Picasso famously said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
Mark Twain, the beloved author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the most influential novels in American literature, also had his share of early missteps. Twain eventually achieved fame and fortune—his books are still widely read today, and he remains a cornerstone of American literary tradition. But Twain himself wasn’t always sure of his early work.
He once said, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education,” and admitted that he regretted some of his earlier books for being overly ambitious or indulgent. But instead of clinging to the certainty of those early works, he continued to refine his craft, letting each mistake and misstep fuel his growth as a writer.
I’ve seen this in my own journey too. Early drafts of my work felt like finished products at the time, yet as I gained more clarity, experience, and insight, I began to see them for what they really were: stepping stones, not final destinations. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s a necessary part of the process.
The same goes for anyone trying to create something meaningful. At first, you’ll feel certain about your ideas, your work, and your direction. But as you grow and learn, you’ll realize how much more you still don’t know. That’s where the magic happens—when you embrace being wrong, refine your craft, and keep pushing forward. You become better because you’re willing to be wrong, again and again.
Five Centuries From Now, They’ll Laugh at Us
Just as we look back in horror at the lives of people five hundred years ago, imagining how primitive their understanding of the world was, I imagine people five hundred years from now will laugh at us and our certainties today.
They’ll look at our technology, our culture, our beliefs, and shake their heads. They’ll laugh at how we let our money and jobs define our lives, as if those were the most important things. They’ll laugh at how we were afraid to show appreciation for those who matter to us most, yet heaped praise on public figures who didn’t deserve it. They’ll look at our political systems, our wars, our fleeting distractions, and they’ll wonder how we could have been so wrong.
The same way we cringe at the outdated views of people from the past—how they believed the earth was flat, or how they thought the heart was the source of love—they will look at us the same way. They’ll study our art, our literature, our systems of power and understand truths about us that we can’t yet grasp. We will have been wrong in so many ways, just as those before us were.
And the crazy part is, they’ll be wrong too. Just like us, they’ll have their own assumptions, their own beliefs they think are absolute truths. But that’s the beauty of it—growth is an endless cycle of realizing how wrong we were, over and over again.
But if you look carefully, from generations of centuries ago till now, we have grown 10,000x times. Why? Because we embraced failure and uncertainty. We didn’t shy away from being wrong. We allowed ourselves to be wrong and learned from it, and that’s how progress is made.
Certainty Kills Growth:
When Thomas Edison was working on the electric light bulb, he famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” He wasn’t just failing—he was wrong again and again. But instead of clinging to certainty or abandoning the idea altogether, Edison kept going. He didn’t let his mistakes lock him into a fixed mindset. He understood that being wrong was a necessary part of the process.
And because of his comfort with being wrong, Edison eventually achieved one of the greatest breakthroughs in human history—the invention of the light bulb. That one invention became the foundation for nearly all modern technology, shaping everything from our daily lives to the global economy. Without Edison’s willingness to be wrong, we wouldn’t have the technology that powers our world today.
Now, consider the more you’re convinced that you’re right. The more certain you are about something, the less likely you are to change. Certainty freezes your mind. It convinces you that there’s no room for improvement, no need for growth. You stop searching for better solutions because you believe you’ve already found the “right” answer.
Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from ‘wrong’ to ‘right’. Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. And when we learn something additional, we go from ‘slightly less wrong’ to ‘slightly less wrong than that’, and then to ‘even less wrong than that’, and so on. We are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection.
We shouldn’t seek to find the ultimate right answer for ourselves, but rather we should seek to chip at the ways that we’re wrong today so that we can be a little less wrong tomorrow.
The Conclusion
Just start. Beat perfectionism. Make mistakes. Be wrong quickly. Fail quickly. This is the natural way to grow. Keep your mind like fertile ground where new ideas can grow.
-Sakhawat Shah, until next time.
