I Don’t Know Very Much

Some people acquire knowledge but lack the humility, reflection and growth that can turn it into wisdom because their goal is to simply reinforce their current beliefs. They’re stuck working to find reasons to cement their thoughts, not trying to understand different ideas.

Examples of some comments:

Growth Happens When We Search for New Perspective
  • “I’ve looked on Twitter and found a lot of people who agree with me.”
  • “Here are some research articles I found that support my point of view.”
  • “I’ve chatted with several people who agree with me completely.”

It’s easy to find people or even research that agrees with one’s point of view – social media is particularly good at finding statements of agreement.

“Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.”

Zen Proverb

Climbing that mountain of personal growth begins when our mind is open, working to broaden our knowledge base — perhaps even needing to change our understanding:

UNLEARNING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN LEARNING

  • Unlearning something is often the most difficult part about keeping an open mind
  • Seek to broaden your understanding rather than trying to deepen it.

SOCIAL MEDIA CANNOT BE YOUR LIBRARY

  • Social media is an opinion platform — it is not a fact library.
  • Unsubstantiated opinions are the norm, not the exception.

TAKE ADVICE FROM TRUSTED SOURCES

Honour Your Values by Nurturing them Every Day
  • There will always be someone willing to offer you their unsolicited opinion — be choosy on what you accept!
  • The best advice comes from persons whom you value.

DON’T ARGUE WITH A PERSON SET ON WINNING AT ALL COSTS

  • Move on.

YOUR VALUES ARE YOUR LEGACY

  • Stay true to your values during the awkward or difficult times — it’s the most critical time to do so.
  • Act consistently on your values and others will respect you for it.

As I push forward on my learning journey, I train my sights on learning, reflecting and growing. Perhaps it might work its way into wisdom at some point, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying the learning curve immensely.

After all — I don’t know very much.

3 thoughts on “I Don’t Know Very Much

  1. Oh, the days when I knew everything, but knew little. The freedom of aging is realizing that I know NOTHING. It is a humbling, human freedom and furthers my path to self actualization. To give the gift of time to community is life fulfillment for me.. I feel lucky, although challenged at times and vulnerable. Learning is life long and precious ❤️

    Like

    • What wonderful reflections, Joyce. Thank you for sharing them with me. To realize that we are but one single part in life’s complexity is actually very liberating. It allows us the freedom you mention to be challenged and indeed vulnerable. 🙂

      Like

  2. Oh the days when I thought I knew it all. Now, I know , I know nothing.., it’s freeing but also humbling and challenging at times. Aging is a beautiful place when everyday you realize how little one really knows. The journey of living and constantly learning is life giving. To constantly want to know and learn gives me oxygen. Constantly learning is a privilege.

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s