Being Wrong

In “Being Wrong”, Kathryn Schulz makes the point that we don’t know what it feels like to be wrong. Once we gain the information that makes us genuinely realise we were wrong, we are instantly in a different state. Resilience requires allowing for our perpetual ignorance. Daniel Kahneman highlights the challenge we face because of our desire to seek out patterns, “the idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.” We think that once we have information, we could have done better if we rewound, and play was pressed again. The world is random. Just pressing play again would change the result. Like throwing a dice again armed with a time machine, knowing a dice was a four last time still wouldn’t be helpful. Each mistake arms us to avoid that mistake in the future, only if the future plays out in exactly the same way. According to a fixed script. What Kahneman highlights is that the correct lesson when you make a mistake because you didn’t anticipate something is that “the world is difficult to anticipate”. You will be wrong. You will make mistakes. Resilience is about building the capacity to survive and thrive despite the certainty of uncertainty.