And so am I.

So are your colleagues, your bosses, your subordinates, and your competitors.

You think you’re smart? Me too. I can learn just about anything I set my mind to. The problem is that there are infinite things to which I could set my mind?and I don’t have infinite time.

For a while I thought that people I looked up to knew everything. I dealt with mentors who displayed such an air of confidence that I was sure there was no question they couldn’t answer.

Now I have learned something more important: wisdom doesn’t mean lack of ignorance.

Each of us, no matter how learned or how studied or how much a member in good standing of Mensa, can only know a tiny portion of an infinitesimal fraction of everything there is to know.

This is not to say that mentors shouldn’t be respected. On the contrary, we can learn from every single person we meet. No, there are two important lessons I take away from the realization of my own massive ignorance:

1. You can continue to feast on new information for the rest of your life; the supply will never wane and your insatiable curiosity can always find new objects of desire. Just the other day, for example, I learned that there is a world championships for rock, paper, scissors; our Head of Research will be competing. I am in awe.
2. If you wait for complete information before acting, you will never act.

My friend Susanne has an organic vegetable farm. She always eats her own produce when it’s available. When it’s not?when it’s out of season or she’s traveling or she just doesn’t feel like cooking?she doesn’t worry about whether the food on her plate meets the same high standards she applies at home. She just eats, and enjoys it.

She is wise.

In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz says to always do your best, and never to worry about not having done otherwise.

He is wise.

Accepting that you can only do your best is extraordinarily freeing. You can actually be wrong?and it won’t fatally undermine your sense of self. You can take any energy you put into defending what you already know and put it to productive use exploring the vastness of the unknown.

Have you embraced your ignorance today?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under People matter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.