I have realized another milestone of maturity: I don’t always have to be right. It’s okay to not have all of the information or that others make slight errors in accuracy.

Case in point…

Yesterday, a biker buddy saw me in the parking lot as I was preparing to leave a grocery store where I had stopped to pick up a few things on my way home from work. As I was packing up my Harley’s tourpak (like a trunk), my friend and I had this conversation:

Friend: Good to see your bike back on the road. Didn’t you have it in the shop for service last week?

Me: Yep. Some ghost of an electrical problem in the throttle that they couldn’t find, but hasn’t happened again.

Friend: The throttle? That controls the flow of fuel to the engine. Did you mean the electronic control that adjusts the fuel flow?

Me: (sigh…) … whatever…

Who really cares about the nuanced difference between the workings and definition of what a throttle does and Harley’s electronic control that they call a “throttle by wire?”

There are some people who always have to be right. I say something at work and people around me know what I mean, but a couple people always feel it necessary to jump in and correct me if I didn’t say it exactly right or with pinpoint precision. There are professionals with whom I have discussions in on-line forums, and at least one of them always has to correct me if I did not quote the exact words from a colleague’s work. I even see this from time to time on the “boots on line” board — there are some guys who feel that they must correct others.

Sure, it is one thing if someone says something egregiously wrong — like at a time in the past when I confused fibrinogen with collagen (fibers that compose leather) — that must be corrected. Someone sent me an email to explain what I was saying wrong. Though her approach was strong, her content was appropriate and I fixed my error.

But it is quite something else to deal with people who insist on 1000% accuracy always, and if they consider you to be a competitor (higher position or authority, service, professional stature, academic credentials), then they feel as if they MUST let you and everyone else within earshot know two things: 1) they know what’s right, and 2) you are wrong.

I look back on my life and realize that for about two decades, I was that guy. I was always, always, correcting people. I had bosses get frustrated with me for doing that, but I was so smug in thinking that “I’m right/you’re wrong” that I did not realize the behavior was working against me. I thought I was earning respect for “knowing my stuff,” but in hindsight, I realize that I was losing respect of my peers and superiors because I was considered to be arrogant in always having to be right.

I think, as humans, we tend to go through cycles like that. In my 30s and 40s, I felt that I had learned a thing or two. I had earned top-level academic degrees from prestigious institutions of higher learning. I had gained relevant and what I thought to be significant experience in my field. I received recognition by being invited as a speaker at a large number of conferences and meetings.

But as I look back and talk to people who “knew me when,” they all have said that they like me better now than they did back then.

Why? Interestingly, three of these long-term friends/colleagues told me within the past week, “you are more relaxed. You don’t take yourself as seriously. You are fun to be around. I also know that if I say something that may not be exactly correct and you know it, you know what I am talking about and just let the discussion move on. You don’t grandstand or posture from a superior academic or professional position.”

I guess now that I am in my 50s, I am more mature. I don’t always have to be right. People know that I know what I am doing and what I am talking about. And if I spot something that someone else says that is not quite right, I just let it go. Ya know, the sun still revolves around Pluto and nothing is worse for the wear the next morning.

I differentiate slightly in my supervisory role when I have to guide, coach, train, and work with my subordinates. That’s different. But in general conversation, I no longer “have to be right” all the time, every time. And you know what? “Letting go” is quite refreshing! On top of that, people like me better.

Life is short: relax and stop correcting others all the time. Plutonians will agree!