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mknod  ·  3790 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A reminder.

Being wrong is a great way to understand how much you have to learn.

I have a friend who is British, and one of our first conversations was about how Americans always talk about work, we ask "What do you do for a living, how was work today, etc" she was very irritated by this sentiment, while I felt quite the opposite. The difference was in understanding what was being asked.

She took "What do you do for a living?" as code for "How much do you make? What class of person are you?" Whereas I take it as code for "Hey I'll bet you do something different than me, what can you teach me about it?"

Now I am sure some people interpret it as the former, and others as the latter. But the important lesson was that we were both wonderfully wrong and we both got to walk away with a different perspective we wouldn't have gotten to see if not for being open to the idea of being incorrect.