No.Nonsense.

This past week, a hilarious video went viral. It was bodycam footage of a woman at a traffic stop. When she asks why she was stopped the officer says it’s because he saw her phone in her right hand. “This hand?” she says as she raises her right arm to show that it ends mid forearm- there is no hand. The officer doubles down and says he saw something in her hand. She asks how that is possible since she was driving with her left hand and doesn’t have a right hand. He says again that he saw her on her phone. She tries again to reason with him that it was impossible that is what he saw so why not just let her go because she did nothing wrong. He asks if she will swear she didn’t have a phone in her hand and she raises her right (handless) arm and says she swears. He says, “Other hand, please,” and she complies.

This officer was showing signs of a pervasive illness called Chronic Rightitis. Symptoms include inability to admit you are wrong even when confronted with the evidence, continuing to circle back to your point, and failure to apologize and admit your wrongness no matter the circumstances.

Narcissists know this condition well as it is Stage Four for them. Donald Trump fits this diagnosis. When asked if he ever asked God for forgiveness, he replied, “no, because I’ve never done anything wrong”. Well, Mr Trump, why don’t we ask everyone you ever cheated in business and your three wives.

Then there is the Victim. This person creates a narrative that the facts don’t support where they are always the one who has been wronged. Prince Harry and Blake Lively are prime examples of this phenomenon. Prince Harry has tried to convince us that he needs taxpayer funded security because he is under constant threat and that the media wiretapped his phone. Blake accused Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment and then had her own text messages bearing out that she was trying to take control of his movie. She said she was the victim of a smear campaign when there are numerous videos of her being rude to reporters. They both have operated in “their truth”. There is not a correct scenario where it is “your truth”- there is only “the truth”.

Finally, there are the rest of us who will occasionally fall into an acute case of Rightitis. We will convince ourselves in the moment that we are right and the other person is wrong and we fail to see the reality of the situation. We are the ones who can usually come back and say, “Wow. I am really sorry that I mucked that one up.”

So how do we inoculate ourselves against Chronic Rightitis?

1. Be humble enough to admit that we don’t know it all.
2. Be gracious enough to recognize that we might not have all of the facts.
3. Be mature enough to say we are sorry with no disclaimers attached.

We will never eliminate this illness from our culture but we can cure it in ourselves if we decide that it’s okay to be wrong. We’re not terminal.