"To admit that I am wrong about something is difficult,
but it sure does provide a lot of good humility."
The first year without a drink was like going to a circus inside of my own head one day at time. On one particular occasion, I had more or less touted the basic benefits of a formula that was being used to fabricate what is commonly referred to in the industry
as a "rolling offset". In short, a ten inch pipe that jumped up twenty inches, laterally across another thirty-eight and three quarters, then stopping four to five inches short of
a wall in order to make the next weld.
After all these measurements off the wall, square roots, cotangents, and take-offs, I was fully convinced that it was going to be in the exact location that had been planned and in this effort, my work would shine for all to see.
While this piece was still sitting there waiting to be hoisted into the air, this guy walks up and with nothing more than a simple tape measure, proceeds to tell me that it was going to hit in the middle of the wall.
"Well, the math must be wrong," I blurted.
Being fully assured in my mind that it was right, we hung this six foot monstrosity only to find out that it was indeed in the wall.
I was so mad. Not so much that I was wrong, but because "he" was right, and "I" was so stubborn.
It really wasn't that big of a crisis or anything, because we just set the piece back down and added on another few feet to get it through the wall. It was admitting that I had made a mistake that was getting the best of me.
In conclusion, pride was swallowed—my crow eaten while it was still warm.
"I was wrong."
When I said that to this guy, he lit up like a Christmas tree. It was at that moment that that tinge of humility began to settle over me. This mistake had really made this guy's day, and it was no longer destroying mine.
Some times, letting go of a tendency to always be right is a very hard thing to do.
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