I know you probably think you are right. We may have evidence that we are right. Most of us do. We talk to our friends, and they reinforce our feelings of being right. But, as I recently heard from a theologian and philosopher, we will never solve our political divide if both sides continue to insist that they are right and won’t listen.

I used to be a know-it-all. It was important to me to always know the answer and let every know it. I vividly remember a know-it-all episode from a long time ago, before GPS, where my then-boyfriend and I and another couple wanted to go to an amusement park that was about an hour away. I was navigating, and I got us extremely lost. I kept insisting I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t. We never got there. I blew it, by being a know-it-all.

It must have been annoying to know me then. I carried this through my entire life, until recently. It might still be annoying, but I’m working on getting better. I’ve been trying to work on becoming humble.

It’s been hard recovering from the belief that I know everything. It helps for me to remember a vision from a spiritual reading. The author described her previous view of people as being on a ladder, with some people on a rung above her, and others below, and her struggling to climb the ladder and pushing people off to do that. That was me. That was how I used knowledge. But then she changed her image to one with everyone in a circle, all people being equal, where she could learn from each person. I keep remembering that image. That’s the world I want to live in and holiday I want to experience.

I get the impression that I’m not the only one who is (or has been) a know-it-all. It seems everyone has an answer for how they’d like the country to be run, or the city or the town. Everyone has an opinion on the president and the Congress. It’s good to have an opinion, but nowadays, it isn’t just that we have a preference; we’ve turned the other side into idiots or the enemy.

Because we believe we are right and “they” are wrong, that can feed a sense of righteousness. We feel virtuous. We may feel that we need to protect ourselves. We might feel proud for “standing up for ourselves” and speaking truth to power.

It leads to the other person believing that they are being looked down on. They believe you are being patronizing. Condescending. Disdainful. Even contemptuous. It hurts when you feel that beliefs and feelings are being disregarded. These are common descriptions of how people on the right feel the left are treating them. No wonder they don’t want to talk to each other.

And they don’t want to be “forgiven” for their beliefs. Who are you to “forgive”?

You can’t both convince people you are right and bridge the divide. Sorry. I know you probably want to, but one of your goals will interfere with the other. Nobody wants to spend time with someone who looks down on them.

If you truly want to bridge our political divide, you need to put relationships with other first. Our lives won’t get better until we do.

The saying, “Do you want to be right or be happy?” applies here. Besides, are you really right all the time? Haven’t you ever found out later that you were wrong about something? Don’t you really want to know if you are wrong?

Most people don’t have a track record of being right all the time. I know, I am one of them. It’s just like a baseball batting average. If I bat .300, I am hitting it out of the park more than most.

It’s a natural human tendency to never go back and assess whether we were wrong. We move ahead and forget all about that time when we made a mistake. In fact, our brains protect us from remembering that we were wrong. Numerous experiments have proven that we misremember the past and don’t remember when we change our mind. We all do it.

I’ve been working on this issue myself for a long time. To help myself get over being an obnoxious know-it-all, I practice saying, “I am wrong.” Even when I don’t have to, even when it isn’t a big deal. By saying it aloud to another person, I am reminding myself of my fallibility. I also practice by saying, “You are right.”

Philip Tetlock, a professor of management and psychology at Wharton, who studies the accuracy of forecasts and who has been monitoring them, found that even those who are considered experts are only accurate about 50 percent of the time. He suggests keeping a journal of your predictions to see how often you are right. Wouldn’t that be amazing if you did that? What would you find?

In his studies he has found that there are a few people who are a lot more accurate at forecasting the future than most. What helps them? They continually revisit their assumptions. If you want to be right more often, then don’t assume you are right, but keep checking your hypotheses. That means abandoning your self-righteousness and being willing to learn from everyone.

So, if you give up feeling righteousness, and give up the idea that you are the one who is right and the other person is wrong, and instead concentrate on repairing the relationship, a side benefit is that you might end up being more accurate in your view of the world. Isn’t that ironic?

If we want to mend our personal relationships that have been fractured by political rancor, we need to consider what we can learn from another point of view.

And many of the problems we’re dealing with are what have been termed “wicked problems.” We aren’t dealing with tame problems that can be solved with standard methods. Instead, we’re trying to solve problems like world hunger that don’t have an obvious solution—one where we have to invent new ways. 

Diversity of thought may help bring us closer to solutions to wicked problems. Research about group dynamics has found that having a diverse set of people in a problem-solving group means that the group develops better solutions. It’s uncomfortable (because people like being with people just like them who don’t challenge their thinking), but it’s more productive to have people who don’t think alike in a group.

If you do that, you will both learn and probably find a lot to agree about. And maybe, just maybe, the other person might change their mind. But not if you come at it the wrong way, not if you go at it with the attitude that you are right.

Humility. Being aware of your own human limitations. And not sitting in judgment of another. All worthwhile ideas that can take a lifetime to practice. As part of my recovery from being a know-it-all, I’ve moved to trying to learn from experts and to use my knowledge to be helpful to people—if they want it. That’s my move toward humility.