The Fear of Being Wrong

This is not about fear of failure in general. It's narrower than that. It's the fear of being caught wrong on something you're supposed to know cold. A fundamental. Something basic. The kind of mistake that shouldn't happen at this point.

That specific thing. That's what stops me.

The shape of it

Once I misread what my boss wanted on an API decision. I suggested something that was obviously wrong — not a difficult call, a straightforward one. He pointed out why the other option was better. Usually that's fine with me. But this time I didn't admit it cleanly. I deflected a little. Changed the story slightly. Nothing major, and I don't think he noticed. But I did.

It's embarrassing to not know off the top of my head what async and await actually mean in Python — even after using them in dozens of projects. Worse: not being able to explain it in plain English when someone asks. A world record attempt failing is fine. Those are the big ones. But not knowing something you're supposed to have internalized by now — that's a different kind of exposure. That's the one I can't shake.

Identity domains vs. everything else

Some years back I tried skating for the first time. I was terrible, it was fun, I didn't care at all. I also started calisthenics and going to the gym. Never cared about being the worst person there. My first days at university I felt I was clearly behind everyone else. That was exciting — how much I was going to learn.

Being a beginner is fine. That's genuinely fine with me. That's not the problem.

The problem is being considered good at something and then getting exposed. Skating can't threaten who I think I am. Programming can. Math can. AI can. Teaching can. These are things I've built a sense of self around. And when I'm wrong about something inside one of those domains — not a hard thing, a simple thing — it doesn't feel like a mistake. It feels like evidence.

Evidence that maybe the story I've been telling about myself isn't accurate.

The expanding standard

Here's the paradox: knowing more makes less room for error, not more.

When I had less experience, I was comfortable saying "I think" and "in my opinion" and "I'm not sure, but..." Of course I wasn't sure — I was learning. But as I've accumulated more, the area of what I'm supposed to know has grown. The standard I hold myself to has gotten stricter. The window for acceptable mistakes has gotten smaller.

And now the mistakes have more consequences. Not just for me — for my team, for my family. That's real. It has paralyzed me sometimes on decisions that would have been no-brainers a few years ago.

The problem is that I've been treating two different things as the same: actual risk, and fear of the expectations and judgment of others. Those are not the same. But I've been responding to both of them the same way — by not moving.

The expert trap

I'll say the uncomfortable thing: it feels good when people ask me questions and trust my answers. I like that I can choose my own work. I like feeling important.

I don't want to want that. But I do.

And it has consequences. The expert can't make beginner mistakes. The expert can't say "I don't know." The expert can't publish something and have it turn out to be wrong. So the expert doesn't publish. The expert plans.

Before we opened Kichihua, we had meetings. A lot of meetings. Ideas, frameworks, assumptions about what the problem was. We wanted change, we wanted action, and we kept meeting. People around us noticed — some made fun of us, others more encouraging: you have good ideas, you should start putting them into practice. We didn't. Then my friend just opened the place. No plan, no document. At the beginning not much happened. But we were finally doing something, and from there we discovered things we could only discover by being inside it.

We never really started until someone forced the start. The meetings were protecting us from exactly that.

What the alternative looks like

A friend told me about a conversation he had with his wife about language learning. He noticed she speaks quieter when she's unsure. We all do. But his reaction stuck with me: if you don't know, you should be louder. Because then other people can correct you more easily. You learn faster. It takes courage, but it's true.

I've felt the same thing in climbing. When you're unsure what move to make, the worst option is to wait — you get tired, lose grip, the decision gets made for you by exhaustion. The better move is to commit. Even to something you're not sure will work. Either you fall (with protection) and learn it was wrong. Or you discover you could do something you thought was impossible — that actually feels amazing. Both outcomes beat freezing.

The goal isn't to not be afraid. It's to commit anyway.

Even with this blog — with online content in general — I catch myself thinking: how would this affect my reputation? What if this messes something else up? But if the goal is learning how to write, how to express myself better, then I need to accept mistakes. I need to push for them actively. It's the only way to keep growing.

Not because I've figured it out

That's why I'm writing it now. Not because I've figured it out — because I haven't. And I'm tired of waiting until I have.

This website exists because I wanted somewhere to write before I was ready. Not after I had the answer. Before. The plan was always the blog post. The website was always the project. Not this time.