As something of a pop-culture vulture, it always amuses me to read about lists of entertainment failures.
While surfing the net, I found two that were particularly interesting. One was a list of famous apologies by artists who did something bad (The Onion’s “AV Club” section) and the other was a list of the 15 most disappointing summer blockbusters of all time (hitfix.com).
One of the many things that the entertainment and news businesses have in common is that when we screw up, it’s done publicly. People make mistakes all the time, but in most situations, only a select number of people know about your brain farts. For those of us whose work is for public consumption, though, it’s a unique feeling to know when you’ve really booted one that everybody will know it, and a not insignificant number of people will take great joy in pointing it out.
It always makes for a classic retrospective laugh. I’ve always cherished my biggest humiliations, because they have, more than anything else, kept my ego at bay. It’s hard to talk about how great you’ve always been when you immediately recall the time when you mistakenly identified a federal judge as a drug dealer. The correction, which was written by my editor, took up a whole special section of the paper. And there were two little miracles in that instance: I didn’t get fired and I never heard from the judge, who would have had every right to provide me with several new orifices.
It was an object lesson that I still like to pass on to younger people. The lesson is simple, if counterintuitive. Professionally and in life in general, there are two things you never go wrong saying: “I screwed up” and “I don’t know.”
They’re sort of related, in that saying the second often can keep you from saying the first. The first is actually more important, though, because it’s often harder to remedy.
It also has a rather disarming quality. I once did a story involving a U.S. senator in which, for reasons that made sense at the time but actually were bad, I didn’t call the senator for his comments. His press guy called me the next day to complain about that. And when he told me why he was upset, I replied, “You know what? You’re right.” I think he was taken aback, judging by the second or two of silence that followed my reply.
A little humility, especially when it’s richly deserved, goes a long way.
The nice thing about this particular lesson is that it doesn’t just apply to one’s work; it applies to just about every aspect of life.
I’m not a big John Lennon fan, but I have two favorite Lennon quotes: “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans” and “Love means having to say you’re sorry every five minutes.”
Having reached an age where I’ve many romantic battles to remember, the second is a particular favorite. The original line from “Love Story,” “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” always struck me as meretricious crap anyway, aimed at the teen-age girl mentality that “Love Story” so successfully found. But it must have come as a shock to a lot of people that Lennon’s statement was the real truth.
Think of it. When you really love somebody, their happiness is important to you. And when you screw up in a relationship, as you inevitably do if you’re human, the first thing you have to do is apologize. And often, the screw-ups have to do with things so subtle or unexpected that they happen often. In a healthy relationship, people probably say “I’m sorry” nearly as often as they say “I love you.”
As for saying “I don’t know,” that’s the mark of a truly intelligent person who, more importantly, is confident in his intelligence. Part of being a really smart person – and again, this is counterintuitive – is knowing what you don’t know. The other part is knowing how to find it out. True intelligence is less a matter of knowing facts than of knowing how you can find them out. We’ve all known b.s. artists and when confronted by one, the second thought that pops into your head (right after “Oh, come on …”) is, “Boy, this person isn’t real bright.”
Unfortunately, people who don’t know how to say “I don’t know” often don’t know how to say “I’m sorry” either. That reduces them to the sort of CYA scrambling that can often make the world such an infuriating place. It often means other people have to cover up their messes and that’s an infuriating way for the innocent part to spend his day.
At least in public discussions, people seem to have developed an inability to admit they’re wrong. Just once, it would be so refreshing to hear someone on one side of a debate say, “Oops. Never mind.” Unfortunately, in this country we’ve fostered a culture in which mistakes are more than what they are; they become fodder for constant jabs. People call that the “gotcha” culture, and it’s partially that. But the harm in “gotcha” isn’t that it happens, it’s that it somehow never goes away.
And I’m not saying people have to disavow their whole opinion on something; I’m just saying that when you find out that one or two of your facts don’t wash, you should just admit it and then go back to the things you say that are correct.
That would require a change in human nature, of course. Humility would have to overcome ego. But you know what? Humility is a muscle. If you give it a workout from time to time, it becomes much easier to practice.