Wrong?

Guest Blogger: Dewin

*Dewin is actually one of the first blogs I followed and vice versa. She found me quite by accident, and bestowed a Sunshine Blog award upon me. From there, I have met one of the most fascinating, intelligent and deep thinkers I have known. Her blog is inspiring and raw and real. She is an artist - a photographer - and here is one of her pics. Enoy!

When I go to a restaurant, I am notorious for ordering the same thing every time. On the occasion that I stray to other parts of the menu, I always seem to be disappointed with the outcome. And, so I politely push the menu aside and repeat my order word for word from my last visit.


In this life, it would seem we have endless choices. Where we go, what we do, who we associate with, who we love. When you are young, people tell you that you can be anything you want to be. Every children’s theme park encourages you to dream, and dream big. But somewhere around age twelve that stops. As we travel the familiar journey from junior high to high school to college to the “real world”, our path gets narrower. We get the grades to get into the college that supposedly gets us the job that allows us what is called “upward mobility”. This tidy plan has a certain momentum that seems to increase incrementally until we can’t even see in any other direction.

A friend told me a story this past weekend about a teacher she knows. This teacher has a teenage son who attended the elite private high school where she worked. Yet, he continually became more aloof, one day telling her that he hated school. His mother was heartbroken that he would hate anything. So, she made a choice. She pulled him out of school, bought an RV, and they traveled around the country for a year.

So, I wondered which is better- more choices or less? I asked myself: why do I prefer fewer choices in a restaurant? Because when I order something that is not good, I am angry with myself that I made the wrong decision and wasted my money. So, I continually order the same thing so that I can never be wrong, thereby always being right. I never venture out of the safety zone for fear of things being worse. Thus, the reason for the path.

Human beings have unknowingly lessened their choices by decreasing the size of their world into a nice manageable mass. The universe can’t possibly contain other life forms. Earth is the only planet worthy of such advancement. And the universe shrinks into a single planet. Other countries/religions/cultures/languages are inferior, even evil. And the planet shrinks into one country. My path in life is to go to school, go to college, and get a job. And your life shrinks into a credit card commercial.

People enforce limitations on themselves and their lives for the sole purpose of not being wrong. They don’t want to worry that maybe they made the wrong life choice, so they simply take away all the other choices. They are safe. And, if anyone around them veers from their rat maze, they condemn them as wrong, or even crazy.

But what if we were a little crazy? What if we ended up being wrong? Would that be so wrong?