Are you a fraud?
2 June 2026
All of us, I believe, should try to be the best person we can be. That means owning our shortcomings.
I don’t know each of my readers personally, but I believe everyone should be regularly saying, to themselves and to others, two things:
I was wrong
I don’t know
I’ve called this one of my superpowers because so many people find it nearly impossible. But if you can’t say these things honestly, you’re lying to yourself.
Everyone is wrong sometimes. That doesn’t make you a terrible person - it makes you human. Even AI gets things wrong. The real question is what you do with it. Admitting mistakes lets you learn from them; refusing to ever be wrong makes learning almost impossible, and frankly makes you a little dangerous to be around. If you want to work on difficult problems, intellectual honesty isn’t optional; it’s the whole game.
The same goes for “I don’t know.” None of us knows everything, and the smarter we get, the more we realize how much we don’t know. People who claim otherwise aren’t projecting confidence; they’re revealing that they can’t be straight with themselves or anyone else.
I try to say both of these things constantly: to keep my ego in check and to be a role model for others.
How about you?
My political blog focuses on what you can or should do to make the world a better place and yourself a better person. I have another blog on Cancer and Medicine.
I read all your comments (except hate speech) and try to respond briefly to questions about the blog’s content, but I cannot have a long conversation. Of course, you are entitled to your opinion, but I remove hate speech and personal attacks.
The index to my political essays since 5 November 2024 is here.
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