Video: Kathryn Schulz on Being Wrong

"This attachment to our own rightness keeps us from preventing mistakes when we absolutely need to and causes us to treat each other terribly. But to me, what's most baffling and most tragic about this is that it misses the whole point of being human. It's like we want to imagine that our minds are just these perfectly translucent windows and we just gaze out of them and describe the world as it unfolds. And we want everybody else to gaze out of the same window and see the exact same thing. That is not true, and if it were, life would be incredibly boring. The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see the world as it is. It's that you can see the world as it isn't. We can remember the past, and we can think about the future, and we can imagine what it's like to be some other person in some other place. And we all do this a little differently, which is why we can all look up at the same night sky and see this and also this and also this. And yeah, it is also why we get things wrong." - Kathryn Schulz

Journal: Write an apology letter

It's hard to admit you've wronged someone. It involves a lot of humility and can be really uncomfortable. Unlike the famous line from the movie Love Story, love does not mean never having to say your sorry. In fact, real love means having to say you're sorry a lot, usually. I think the more you do it, though, the better you get at it. I was very very bad at apologizing when I was a kid and teen. I feel like back then it was almost literally painful for me to apologize or ask forgiveness. I'm getting better at it, though.

For today's journal, I want you to write an apology letter so someone you've wronged. You don't have to give the letter to them if you don't want to. I often find that when I'm trying to communicate something difficult, it's much easier to write it out, than try to fumble through words verbally. I'm much better at writing than I am at talking, and I like being able to write several drafts and edit things so they are clear and mean what I want them to mean.

If you want to write more than one, go ahead! Love is all about reconciliation, and apologizing and asking forgiveness is the first step to reconciliation. Admitting you've hurt someone or done something wrong is hard, but ultimately, leaving the relationship broken by your wrongdoing is worse than just admitting you've hurt someone.