I don’t remember the first time I was wrong. But I do remember the first time I refused to admit it. Even as evidence mounted against my position, I clung to it, watching as faces shifted from engagement to exasperation.

It is often said that the truth will set you free, but rarely does it prepare you for the price of holding it, especially when it sets you apart. The moral clarity we are so often taught to prize can become a burden when wielded without wisdom. That’s what Peter Marshall’s prayer speaks to: “Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change, and when we are right, make us easy to live with.” A single line, but it carries the weight of a lifetime.

For much of my adult life, I thought being right gave me moral currency. That if I argued with clarity, reason, or passion, I had earned the right to push harder, to hold my ground, to correct others. And perhaps I had. But I did not yet understand what it cost friendships were strained, conversations shut down and opportunities for my growth lost in the rubble of righteousness.

This prayer by Marshall provides a framework for living well among others. In a time when certainty is often weaponised, where being “right” has become a form of currency, it’s easy to forget the cost of moral rigidity. The pursuit of being correct can all too easily override the call to be kind.

Consider how we navigate disagreements in public discourse today. “Pooliticians” claim absolute certainty on complex issues, social media rewards the most uncompromising voices and families fracture over ideological differences. We are seeing the consequences of valuing rightness over relationship in real time.

Sadly we live in a culture that often rewards confidence, even when it is misplaced. Woe be you if you admit fault, for that is seen as weakness; to concede ground is to risk relevance. But the humility to acknowledge error is not a deficit of strength, it is I think, its finest expression. There is dignity in being wrong and choosing to change. It signals maturity, growth, and a deep respect for truth beyond ego. Without this capacity for correction, learning stalls and relationships fracture.

Equally dangerous, however, is the pride that swells when one is right. Righteousness, unchecked by grace, can become overbearing. Knowledge becomes condescension. Conviction becomes control. In moments such as these, truth loses its redemptive quality. People do not resist the truth because it is untrue, but because it is delivered without tenderness. I have often said truth doesn’t hurt, what hurts is the way you find out.

Sir Thomas More, as portrayed in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons,” offers profound insight into this dilemma. When his son-in-law Roper declares he would “cut down every law in England” to get after the Devil, More responds, “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

This principle extends far beyond legal matters. How often do we, convinced of our rightness, dismantle the structures of civility, patience, and mutual respect only to find ourselves exposed when circumstances change? Being “right” does not entitle you to destroy the surrounding framework. Even righteousness must be tempered with restraint. With mercy. With the awareness that today, you may stand tall with truth on your side but tomorrow, you may be the one who needs shelter from the storm.

The modern world presents another challenge to nuanced moral reasoning: the tyranny of positivity. We are surrounded by messages urging us to “manifest joy,” “banish negativity,” and “live in gratitude,” as if life were a spreadsheet where doubt and sorrow are bugs to be patched. More often than not this overpositivity is denial dressed in pastels. It demands that we amputate the darker shades of human emotion to fit a sanitised narrative of perpetual triumph.

In many a support group, newcomers often feel pressured to demonstrate their “growth” and “positive outlook” rather than honestly expressing their pain. In these spaces, vulnerability is only welcome once it’s been processed into something inspiring. This atmosphere stifles honesty and makes individuals feel isolated in the very spaces designed to support them, as if their suffering must be palatable or productive to be heard.

The cult of “feeling good” has metastasised into a cultural obsession that undermines genuine ethical development. Wellness gurus preach self-care as salvation, framing happiness as an individual project divorced from communal responsibility. The pursuit of happiness as a concept is critically flawed, because happiness is often fleeting and subjective. When we make happiness our primary goal, we’re chasing something inherently unstable. What makes us happy can change from time to time, making it an unreliable foundation for a meaningful life. What is being passed as enlightenment, is nothing but narcissism with a veneer of spirituality. When feeling good becomes the ultimate metric, moral action is reduced to a matter of personal preference.

More’s warning about dismantling laws offers a parallel here. Abandoning ethical frameworks in favour of personal comfort leaves us directionless and vulnerable. Genuine moral integrity is not about fleeting emotional satisfaction it is a disciplined, often uncomfortable commitment to doing what is right. It means standing with others even when it’s inconvenient, speaking up for justice when silence is easier, and choosing principle over ease. In this light, the pursuit of simply “feeling good” becomes not only inadequate but frequently antagonistic to the harder, more enduring work of being good.

The world will always tempt us toward absolutes. It is easier to don the armour of hyper-optimism than to sit with uncertainty, simpler to chase romantic ideals than to nurture imperfect bonds. But life, in its unscripted messiness, resists these binaries.

To live fully is to embrace the paradox: that we must believe fiercely while leaving room for doubt, love deeply while accepting frailty, and strive for good while resisting the seduction of moral vanity.

For in the end, the true test of being right is not whether we speak the truth, but whether others can stand near us and still feel safe. And maybe, just maybe, that’s where grace begins.