Why is it Healthy to Admit “I Don’t Know”?
Not knowing things is how you grow and evolve.
One of the biggest issues in modern American politics right now is that one side claims that they have all the answers. They know everything they need to know. Whether it’s been endowed by God, Ronald Reagan, or some other demagogue, they have the answer. Their go-to “leader” is a self-proclaimed “stable genius” who always knows everything and is never wrong.
This party is thus, with their claims of knowing everything, moving steadily backward and undoing progress on some truly frightening levels. How are they doing this? Largely by weaponizing not knowing things.
They are pushing the idea that “I don’t know” makes you weak, makes you inferior, and sets you up to fail. The narrative tone they stand for is one of haughty self-righteousness and the right to it borne only by knowing things. They don’t know something? Look how inferior they are because they don’t know and we do.
This is utterly backwards, however. Scientific curiosity is born of looking at something, saying “I don’t know but desire to learn.” The unknown is where great discoveries abound.
Seeking answers when you don’t know is how we got to the world we’re at today. Questions like, “What’s on the other side of that hill? I don’t know,” once met with answers like “Terrible, scary things” were now met with “Let’s go look and see.”
While knowledge is power, it’s not just given and granted. To gain it, you need to learn. That often begins by exploring when “I don’t know” is your response.
Empowering learning and growth
As a child, you didn’t enter the world with knowledge beyond base instinct. Base instinct isn’t knowledge, it’s genetic coding that allows you to get what you need from parents and other caregivers to survive.
School is where you began to grow knowledge. However, at the beginning, this was mostly about learning how to learn. How do you solve basic math, learn to read, and learn to learn in general? That and socialization are the main goals of elementary school.
As you become a teen, your frontal lobe begins to truly develop. Then you start to seek more advanced knowledge. What do I enjoy? Who do I like being with? Arguably, most importantly of all, you begin to ask, “Who am I?”
All learning of real knowledge begins with recognizing that there are things you don’t know. More than that, there are things you don’t know but desire to know. Thus, you start to do what you can to learn.
“I don’t know” leads you to question things and empowers you to seek answers. Social studies, advanced math, and science in school start to address this and teach you. However, it doesn’t address the question “Who am I?”
That is a self-directed matter. Who you are can be known to you, and you alone. That’s because you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Nobody but you can know you, as such.
When the answer to “Who am I?” is “I don’t know,” you seek to learn. That quest ultimately empowers you.
Working with and from “I don’t know” makes you stronger, not weaker
Contrary to the aforementioned American political party’s assertion that not knowing makes you weak, the truth is that it makes you strong. Not knowing things doesn’t make you lesser, unworthy, or defective. Truth is, it makes you human.
Do you know how many things there are to know in the world today? If you do, you’re fooling yourself. For example, there are any number of fields I know nothing whatsoever about. What’s more, they do not interest me, and I do not need to know them. Why? Because they don’t have any impact on me or my life in the least.
This includes things like raising cattle in Australia, mixing rocket fuel, the price of tea in Mumbai, and so, so many other things. Am I lacking because I don’t know these things? No. Unless I was raising cattle in Australia, a rocket scientist, or a buyer of tea in Mumbai, this knowledge isn’t necessary for me.
You are one of 8 billion people on this planet. Those 8 billion people live in nearly 200 countries across 7 continents. The circumference of the Earth is nearly 25,000 miles. Given these numbers, mathematically, can you tell me how many of those people know everything? That’s a trick question because the answer is 0.
“I don’t know” applies to everyone everywhere. That doesn’t make you lesser, or weaker. It empowers you to grow, learn, and evolve.
What do you desire to know?
I know a lot about a few things. Conversely, I know a little about even more things. I don’t know everything about anything, and what I don’t know at all is beyond count.
What do I desire to know? That depends on many factors. For one of my jobs, I know how to edit podcasts, and I am learning how to monetize them and promote them further. With another of my jobs, I’m learning how to use Canva for the creation of images and reels to use on social media. For my writing, I’ve studied physics, biology, other sci-fi and fantasy, planetary distances, solar power, batteries, and more.
The things that interest me won’t necessarily interest you. Similarly, what I desire to know you might not care about in the slightest. Likewise, you have interests that disinterest me, and knowledge I don’t feel any need to know whatsoever.
Because nobody knows everything about anything – but human beings are inherently curious and seek to learn, grow, and evolve – the starting point is inevitably “I don’t know”. That’s why “I don’t know” is so damned healthy. It is from not knowing that we seek to gain more knowledge.
That anyone has all the answers is a lie. Nobody has all the answers. Without disparaging anyone’s religious beliefs; your God, Gods, or whatever deity or omnipotent presence you worship has not endowed any single living being with total, complete, authoritative, end-of-all-questions knowledge.
Everybody doesn’t know something. Period.
I don’t know, because there is always something to be learned
No matter what scale you measure life, the Universe, and everything on, there is always something to be learned.
Nearly all learning, especially in adulthood, starts with “I don’t know”. That doesn’t mean you are an idiot, unworthy, lacking, unqualified, or what have you. It means you have curiosity and the desire to gain knowledge.
Science is mutable because what we know changes. Yesterday’s theory is tomorrow’s law. Take dinosaurs, for example. I was taught, as a child, that they were scaled lizards. Now many are seen as feathered avians. Pluto was a full-fledged planet and is now a dwarf planet. Analog audio recording had a strict channel limit to avoid feedback that digital audio recording overcomes. How? By someone who didn’t know something sufficiently studying it. Learning.
When you are taught to fear “I don’t know”, you are disempowered. You remain sheltered, ignorant, and at the mercy of the people telling you not knowing makes you weak. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Consider this: At some time, during your life, you faced “I don’t know” and decided you desired to know. You took action to learn whatever that was and came away with more knowledge and understanding. That’s why you know how to tie your shoes, read, dress yourself, and do everything else you can do.
There will always be things to be learned. Knowledge to be gained. That’s why it’s healthy to admit “I don’t know.” Without that admittance, how else can you grow, evolve, and expand what you know? How else can you know who you are and change if that isn’t who you desire to be?
This is the six-hundred and thirtieth (630) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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