Knowing Everything Is An Affliction - Grasshopper

Have you ever been accused of being a “Know-it-All”? I have and I was.

What I’ve come to learn is that when you know everything, you can’t learn anything new. It causes the disease known as “Stuck in your ways.”

 

Being affixed to your own knowingness leads to isolation because no one wants to hang around with someone who has no new fat to chew.

 

There is a liberating phrase for this malady ?" one that is hard to leave your lips. But if you say it to yourself or say it aloud, you’ll stop offending the maddening crowd. What is this magic phrase that pays? It’s, “I don’t know.”

 

When you don’t know, you make room in your life for growth. We all have accumulated learning experiences that serve us well. When we think there is no more to learn, we create a living hell, for others and us.

 

There is an odor of smugness that fills the air and it chokes off any conversation that leads to something new. We’re triter than the wedding phrase, “Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.”

 

When you’re married to your omniscient philosophy, you think you have dotted every “I” and crossed every “T.” But you have missed something in the process because you weren’t paying attention to anything outside of you.

 

Want to learn new things? Start asking people what they think. Want people to hang around you more? Leave your knowing ways behind and you’ll stop being an insufferable bore.

 

All the best,

John