You’re Doing It Wrong
Daily Meditation 535–8/14/2023
Just a few days ago, we had a Meditation about the importance of embarrassment and how we should somewhat actively seek out being embarrassed as it can serve to keep our ego in check.
Well, as an offshoot of that, you should also actively look to try new things with the full knowledge you are doing them wrong.
We are terrified of the cringing, awful feeling of doing something — at work, at the gym, in our relationships, anywhere — and someone coming up to us, saying those four, dreaded words “You’re doing it wrong.”
(Or some derivative of it)
And first of all, in a majority of cases, people mean well.
At work, “You’re doing it wrong” is someone’s way of ensuring everyone has less (re)work, that customers or clients are better served, and that everyone’s jobs are protected.
At the gym, “You’re doing it wrong” is someone’s method of protecting you from serious injury — hernias, slipped discs, crushed skulls — and helping you become stronger.
In our relationships, “You’re doing it wrong” is code for helping you communicate better, learning to clean or tidy in a more appreciated way, or ensuring the children are well reared (together).
“You’re doing it wrong” is not to be interpreted as a cudgel with which we are being beaten down with, generally.
We should work to interpret them, instead, as someone lacing their fingers together, forming a foothold and saying “let me help you up, here.”
Just like the use of embarrassment to control our egos, we can utilize doing things wrong to learn how to do them right.
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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
