Being right.

I like to be right.

In fact, my wife Julie and I have a running joke about this. If we both guess something or know something the other doesn’t, instead of just saying, “You’re right”, we have to say, “You’re right again!”

This used to get me in trouble when I was new to the social media thing.

Somebody would post something that was wrong, or just plain stupid, and I felt compelled to set them straight.

No matter the topic, but especially if it involved politics and religion, I felt the need to get the right information from a non-biased source, and then tell everybody so they would agree.

This was exhausting. And futile.

And it made me like people less. And I’m sure it made them like me less.

It took some white-knuckling but I think I am over that now.

I discovered I could shake my head, and then use that little thing called a mouse, and keep scrolling. I didn’t need to point out mistakes and wrong info and try to one-up everybody with my “wisdom”.

The most I do now is send a private message to a true friend if they are sharing something that is dangerous or dated or whatever, just in case they want to take it down.

Anyway, I share this because I think maybe somebody else needs to know it’s ok to not be right all the time. I mean, it’s cool to be right, but we don’t have to shout it on somebody else’s Facebook wall.

And, perish the thought, maybe we’re not always right.