Last year’s big Christmas gift was an automated espresso machine. Our coffee tastes have evolved over the years, but a couple of trips to Europe showed us that there was a tastier world of coffee than what we experience with hot water pressed through plastic pods. This machine has it all. Pictures of every coffee beverage one can imagine and endless combinations of water, grind, froth, intensity, and temperature. We bought the automated version hoping to take the guesswork out of the myriad settings and quickly found our way to desirable combinations which we locked-in with a lovely save feature.

There is something so wonderful about knowing what to expect every morning when we press the buttons. We were able to set it and forget it, knowing that we had the proper formula for a hot, tasty beverage every time. Looking around this morning, I was struck by how much this thinking permeates my life. Our thermostat is set at the proper temperature. Our gas fireplace comes on at the right flame level when we flip the switch. My Airpods give me the right volume as I listen to my Blade Runner station on Pandora, and the Apple ad reminds me how easy it is to buy Christmas gifts with all of my payments options properly set and saved in my virtual wallet.

We absolutely love these formulaic conveniences. I really notice it when some app has the audacity to ask me to re-enter a password or a Microsoft update forces me to wrestle through additional security validations. How many times have I fumed over extra steps to get logged-in that slowed me down from the quick look I needed at email or Teams? With the advent of commercialized artificial intelligence, we are promised the opportunity to set and forget huge chunks of our life, including annoying things like writing and thinking for ourselves. Who wants to waste time having to think about what to right on a post or an email?

The predictability of these many modern conveniences is great comfort to our need to know what to expect. Having the right formula to produce a desired result is an incredibly comforting state of being and, given the choice, we would likely choose to set and forget most aspects of our life…particularly when it comes to people and decisions. Imagine the power of knowing the proper formula to win arguments or the recipe for making billions of dollars or the correct algorithm to win elections. Many of us have imagined such power, that is why there are huge dollars spent on the many people, products, and services, promising to provide such things.

There is an app, consultant, algorithm, and now AI, to solve all of our greatest challenges, ranging from staying young, to finding love, to getting elected, to losing weight, or getting smarter, or winning business, or making money, etc. We can quickly find an answer to anything and there is no shortage of people willing to help us spend our money to find those answers so we can set and forget the struggles that hold us back.

Of course, the messy nature of our existence makes it impossible to solve the many struggles quickly or easily. Relationships are difficult. Markets are challenging. Electoral issues are transitory. Consumers get bored, scared, or distracted. Followers decide to follow someone else and influencers become less influencing in the shifting sands of taste and trend. No matter how hard we try, it’s hard to be right when so there are so many ways to be wrong.

Oh, and how we hate to be wrong. We don’t like it when our formula doesn’t work, and we like it even less when the person sitting across from us is right. Being wrong is right up there with losing on the scale of annoying facts of life. Being wrong is so infuriating that we’ll often burn relationships down before we admit it. We do the same thing with investments, deals, companies, laws, policies, research, etc. History is littered with the destruction of bad choices and I suspect that much of it stems as much from the inability to admit to being wrong as much as being wrong itself.

Yet, there are so many success stories despite the fact that we are often wrong and that it is really, really hard, to admit it. Successful relationships. Successful entrepreneurs. Successful politicians. Successful research projects. Successful individuals in all sorts of endeavors. How do we reconcile our capacity for being wrong with great results?

Steve Jobs was wildly successful by many measures. The Apple products that still dominate our consumer world many years after his death stem from his obsessive vision and drive for elegant design and simplicity. Despite what looks like one unified vision for the future from a single genius able to see something we didn’t, the truth is far more complicated. Or simple, depending on your point of view. Jobs was hard-driving and tyrannically stubborn, however, he often changed his mind, adopting countering views after tirades tearing them down. Sometimes almost instantly.

Some viewed this as mercurial, lacking conviction, and maddening, as he would rarely admit his error and often claim the countering idea as his own. Not the greatest example of leadership. However, he was willing to changing his mind and that in itself, was an admission of being wrong. Even if he didn’t say it out loud. Politicians are often criticized for flip-flopping on positions. Winston Churchill was one of the worst. Or was it the best? Sure, one may change a position due to public opinion or for political gain, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right decision to make. Admitting one is wrong, whether expressly or in making a different decision, is often prudent and necessary.

Walking away irritated from a recent argument, I found myself reflecting on my own need to be right. I recognized in the exchange that in some ways, I was right, but I could also see where I was wrong. Going a bit deeper, it isn’t hard to find a similar pattern in other arguments, business decisions, or personal choices I’ve made. Looking back on the building of our company, the many forks in the road, the numerous mistakes, and the persistently imperfect information that accompanied all of it, I realize that from a percentage point of view, I may have been wrong more than I was right. And yet, we’re still here.

The hard truth is that I often make mistakes, choose wrongly, or see things incompletely. However, through the great gift of Grace, I have been able to see it, and admit it, often enough to keep moving forward. Thank you to all those who continue to help me see the light every day.

Life is a long game. There is no secret formula. No algorithm to avoid the mistakes, no AI to show us the right path, no technology to enable us to be right all the time. However, the ultimate road to flourishing might depend less on what we did right than the times we were able to admit we were wrong. We come to see that getting to right often passes through the frustrating valley of being wrong. And that’s ok.