This book will not tell you how to live your life. It will not hand you a new belief system or a ten-step programme. What it will do — quietly, warmly, without any fuss — is show you that the suffering you carry is largely made of thought, and that thought is something you are not obligated to believe.
A career abandoned, a monastery entered
Björn Natthiko Lindeblad was a promising Swedish economist in his mid-twenties when something shifted. Not a crisis, not a breakdown — just a growing certainty that the life he was building pointed in the wrong direction. He walked away from it and spent the next seventeen years as a Buddhist forest monk in Thailand, in one of the most demanding monastic traditions in existence. No money, no possessions, no privacy, no comfort worth mentioning. Just practice.
"What I value most from my seventeen years of full-time spiritual training is that I no longer believe my every thought. That's my superpower."
— Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May Be Wrong
When he returned to Sweden at 47, the adjustment was brutal. A year and a half of depression. A world that had moved on without him. And then, in 2018, a diagnosis of ALS — an incurable, progressive disease that would eventually take his ability to speak, to move, to breathe. He died in January 2022, by his own choice, shortly before the English translation of this book was published.
What the forest teaches
The book is structured as a series of short chapters, each built around a lesson from his years of training. There is no grand argument, no thesis to defend. The voice is gentle, occasionally funny, and radiates the particular authority of someone who has actually tested these ideas under extreme conditions — not just read about them.
"Directing our attention, choosing what we aim it at, is the best and possibly the only thing we can do when things get really hard."
— Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May Be Wrong
He is not asking you to become a monk. He is explicit about this. The wisdom he carries is not locked behind robes and rituals. It is available to anyone willing to sit still for a moment and notice what is actually happening inside their own head.
"I can dance with life instead of trying to control it. I can live my life with an open hand rather than a clenched fist in fear."
— Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May Be Wrong
On thoughts, suffering, and the two heavy bags
The central insight of the book is deceptively simple: you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts arrive uninvited, take whatever shape they like, and leave again. You did not manufacture them. You do not have to act on them. You do not have to believe them.
"There are two kinds of thoughts that dominate almost all humans: thoughts revolving around our own history and thoughts revolving around our own future. It's as though you're walking through life lugging these two big, heavy, important bags with you. They're wonderful, valuable bags. But try putting them down, just for a bit."
— Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May Be Wrong
This is the practice. Not emptying the mind — he is admirably clear that this is not the point, and not really possible. As he puts it: “Only dead people have quiet minds.” The practice is learning to watch thoughts without becoming them. To notice the story the mind is telling, and choose not to be swept away by it.
"We learn in stillness, so we remember when the storm comes."
— Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May Be Wrong
Wisdom earned the hard way
What separates this book from the crowded mindfulness shelf is the weight behind the words. Björn did not read his way to these conclusions. He earned them through years of physical hardship, through loneliness, through watching his own mind in conditions of radical simplicity. And then he tested everything he had learned against the hardest possible exam — a terminal diagnosis — and it held.
"I was never promised a long life. We, humans, are like leaves on trees in that respect. Most leaves hold on until they're withered and brown. But some fall while they're still green."
— Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May Be Wrong
There is also humour here, which matters. He does not take himself seriously. He describes his failures, his awkward re-entry into Swedish society, the culture shock of seventeen years of compression into a supermarket aisle. The lightness makes the depth land harder.
"The more refined forms of happiness are characterised by the absence of things, rather than the presence of things."
— Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May Be Wrong
6 Key Ideas From This Book
Thoughts arrive on their own and leave on their own. The practice is learning to observe them without identification — to say "I have thoughts" rather than "I am my thoughts."
When things are difficult, the one thing you can actually do is choose where you direct your attention. This is not a small power. Practised consistently, it changes everything.
Most mental suffering comes from carrying the past and the future simultaneously. Neither is real right now. Setting them down — even briefly — creates contact with the actual present moment.
The most refined happiness is defined by what is absent, not what is present. Seventeen years of monastery life taught Björn that less is not deprivation — it is a form of freedom.
You cannot wait to feel ready to let go. Letting go is something you practise repeatedly, especially with the thoughts that are hardest to release — which are usually the ones causing the most harm.
The title is a daily instruction. Repeating "I may be wrong" before a conflict or a judgement dissolves the ego's need to win. It opens space for curiosity and genuine connection.
Anyone going through a difficult period — loss, burnout, anxiety, or a life that is not turning out as planned. The book does not promise resolution. It offers something better: a different relationship to the difficulty.
No Mud, No Lotus by Thich Nhat Hanh for practice, and Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach for a Western psychological perspective on the same territory.
Ambitious professionals and high achievers who have achieved what they wanted and found it empty. Björn's story begins exactly there — and he is not judgmental about it.
The book is translated from Swedish, and the translation is generally excellent — though one or two moments feel slightly awkward. A minor issue in a book this warm and precise.
Is I May Be Wrong a religious book?
No. Björn addresses this directly in the opening pages. The book draws on Buddhist forest monk training, but it is not about converting to Buddhism or adopting any religious doctrine. The practices and insights it describes are entirely secular in their application — about the relationship between a person and their own thoughts.
How does I May Be Wrong compare to other mindfulness books?
Most mindfulness books are written by teachers or researchers. This one is written by someone who actually lived the practice at its most demanding — seventeen years in a monastery — and then had to apply everything he learned to terminal illness. That context gives the words a different weight. It reads less like instruction and more like a letter from someone who has been where you are.
Is this book suitable for someone who has never meditated?
Yes, completely. Björn does not assume any prior practice or knowledge. The book is conversational, accessible, and written without jargon. It is as useful for a first-time reader as it is for someone with years of meditation experience.
What is the main message of I May Be Wrong?
That you are not your thoughts, and that this single insight — truly understood and practised — changes everything. The title itself is the core teaching: holding your own convictions more lightly creates space, reduces suffering, and makes genuine connection with others possible.
The Verdict
Björn Natthiko Lindeblad wrote this book while dying, with two to five years left and a message he needed to deliver. It shows. Every page has the clarity of someone who has run out of time for anything but the essential. This is not a book about monks or monasteries or Buddhism. It is a book about learning to live with yourself — your thoughts, your suffering, your uncertainty — with a little more grace and a lot more honesty. I have read a great deal in this space. This is the one I would press into someone's hands first.
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