What We Can Dispute

I love learning languages and as such, have spent a lot of time on Duolingo and other language learning apps. Because there can be many ways to say the same thing, occasionally, Duolingo will tell you you’ve made a mistake when really your translation is just a different way of being correct. 

When this happens, you can click a button that says, “my answer was correct,” and prompt a notification to whatever team at Duolingo handles these kind of quality support questions. Then, months later, you’ll receive an email telling you that they now accept a specific translation. They always sign the email with some sort of, “thanks for making language learning better” statement that gives me a very fun power rush.

Maybe a year ago, I opened Duolingo and curiously went to the “math” language. What started as a joke actually turned into a sincerely improved brain for mental math. Where Duolingo Math differs from Duolingo Spanish or Arabic or Greek is in math there is no disputing. You are either right or you are wrong. There is no maybe. There is no improved translation. Six plus four equals ten. Always. 

It got me to thinking about discomfort in my life. Was it something I had control over? Is there a different way of looking at it that I haven’t considered yet? If the answer is yes, then it’s a language problem. I can dispute it. I can look it differently. I can consider what I might not have thought of before. 

If I can’t? Well there are some things in life we aren’t able to dispute. And if I can’t dispute it, am I not doing myself a disservice by continuing to dwell on it? 

Perhaps then this is a matter of knowing what we have control over and then taking steps to control it just as much as it is a lesson on knowing when, what, and how to let go. And perhaps in this letting go, we give ourselves space to hold on to what really matters.