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Posts Tagged ‘Kathryn Schulz’

Strong Women

Posted in aging, Art, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , on May 21, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Yellow makes me happy. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way   

“My grandmother turned toward a guard – she was in line to be shot into a pit – and said, ‘What happens if I step out of line?’ And he said, ‘I don’t have the heart to shoot you, but somebody will.’ And she stepped out of line. And for that I am here.” – Alex Borstein.

This quote opens the book The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line, which I was given as a recent birthday present after I requested stories about strong women. It’s about “girls” who stepped out of line and helped win World War II. I’m loving this book.  

Quote: “Being right might be gratifying, but in the end it is static … being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey and a story … to fuck up is to find adventure.” – Kathryn Schultz, Being Wrong,

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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The Rightness of Wrongness

Posted in aging, Art, Books, Journeys, tagged , on February 4, 2026| 2 Comments »

Hey! Am I in the wrong place? — Art by Pat Bean

“It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.” – Moliere

Aging My Way

I’m reading Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz, who after talking about the benefits of being right, extolled the positive aspects of being wrong, which at some point in our lives we all are whether we want to admit it or not.

As I read, I thought about my friend Jean who just this morning pointed out, gleefully I might note, that I was wrong about how I interpreted some email instructions I had received. She heard otherwise.

Because we are friends, it was good-natured banter that in one form or another has continued ever since we became friends over 12 years ago. We both always want to be right.    

But while I was thinking about this quite recent episode, I thought back to a time nearly 60 years ago when being wrong was one of the best things happening in my life.

I had squeezed through a back door into working for a small Texas daily newspaper because I wanted to be a reporter. And what I knew about becoming that was absolutely nothing.

Thankfully for me, the newsroom was always short-staffed, and so I got an opportunity to do a bit of everything. The problem was that while I was told what to do, no one had the time, or patience, to tell me how to do it – that is until I did it wrong.

Then, everyone had time to tell me. And that was how I gained enough journalism experience to have a successful career that I loved for 37 years.

I agree with Kathryn. Being wrong isn’t always wrong.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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