A couple of months ago, Danny got wise with me. He said, “It seems to me there are two ways of being right. One depends on remembering the correct answer and the other requires solving a problem. In my opinion, remembering correctly is not something you can brag about. That’s like trying to take credit for 20/20 vision.”

Excellent reasoning, I thought. “Well put,” I said.

Recently, though, I’ve been considering a third way to be right. That’s what happens when news surfaces, or test results are reported, which support your prediction or understanding of a subject. For example, Katie has sent me links lately, about ego depletion and about pronouns, which reported observations the authors announced as surprising. But I wasn’t surprised. I’d thought a lot about the subjects, and the reported observations were exactly what I expected. Decision-making takes its toll on the ego. Men tend to use pronouns differently (less personally) than women do. “I was right!” I enthused as I read (and bookmarked, for future reference).

But I wasn’t gloating. It looked like a gloat. It sounded like a gloat. The word “arrogant” occurred to myself about myself. But that wasn’t it.

Rather, I was happy because I’d just received encouragement to proceed as I had been, in my examination of what it takes to live and be happy. The news told me I was not wrong.