***Making the Best Mistakes - A Recipe

Simmering just below most people's awareness most of the time is an instinct for not making a mistake, not being wrong. It can be a quiet but steady unease that makes a person less comfortable in his own skin.

Having to choose one right thing, the most right thing, instead of a right thing or the lesser evil encourages a black-and-white world view. It encourages rejecting a choice once and for all and not looking back. It encourages - in the absence of there being one clearly right answer - designating one of the choices as Right and never retracting the designation because that would mean a mistake was made. In English, 'right' means both 'correct' and 'moral.' I smell a peril there. Linear thinking and dualistic thinking that 'keep us on the right track' also limit our footsteps. A mistake means you are 'wrong' in the sense of deserving to be punished.

A ancient benefit of this instinct is the unity in the "We are right and they are wrong" mindset. Is that where it all began? Is this the underpinning of the herd consciousness of primitive humans? Something gives us the strong feeling we have to be right or we are wrong (and therefore undeserving of reward), even as we acknowledge consciously that, yes, reality is shades of gray. There's that comforting strength in the "I am right and you are wrong" mindset. Sometimes I think the extended time humans spend in childhood being corrected by parents (and punished sometimes by them) is a factor in the instinctual fear. My list of possible causes grows!

"Us" are right and we punish "Them" who are wrong: Was there ever a war that both sides did not justify along moral lines? - at least in modern times? Along the same lines, there are people we think we have to disapprove of or even dislike because they are on the other side of some issue or divide.

Now, imagine most of us being comfortable when we choose the least objectionable direction. Imagine a leader not having to be decisive but admitting "The best we can do for now is …" Are you breathing easier? Imagine most people saying out loud "Well, the least objectionable candidate is So-and-so and I suppose I will vote for him/her." Wouldn't that feel better than their arguing which is right when they don't agree with either fully?

When you feel comfortable that this is the best mistake you can make, and that up ahead there may be a turn in a better direction, you will be on the lookout for that turn as an opportunity instead of as a dreaded admission of fault.

Let's head in that direction, shall we?