Knowing

We don’t know what we don’t know. Take a moment to unpack that last sentence. Each of us has a headful of knowledge, understanding, and learning stored away. We use it daily, like doing something to improve our lives. Preparing food is an example here.

We use other stuff occasionally. Then there’s stuff we might never use unless we’ve done specific training, such as performing surgery or flying a plane. Let’s return to the opening sentence of this post.

There is a truckload of knowledge that we don’t know. Most of it is unknown to us, so we don’t know about it. Is it worth finding out stuff we don’t know? If we don’t know what it is, how can we find out about it?

A friend feeds you information. They spoke to you about it after hearing someone else talk. Maybe they saw it on social media, read it somewhere, or saw it on TV. Until that point, you didn’t know that information existed, and you didn’t know what you didn’t know.

Okay, stay with me. You have two choices from here. Discard the info because it’s not going to make a difference to your life. Choice two is the fun part–you can accept it. A new option opens up–will this info change my life for the better?

It’s a great question to ask yourself when presented with something new. We ask it subconsciously every day. I’d venture that it drives most of our behaviour. Of course, don’t forget about confirmation bias. That post is here.