I was a middle aged man sitting with several hundred other people in a business seminar the first time I heard that question. My initial reaction probably was not unique within the group. "That might be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard." The speaker paused while we swallowed the bait.
"But that's exactly what most of you here in this room have done." My immediate response to this was that I'd wasted my time and my money attending this stupid meeting. The speaker probably noticed a similar look on many other faces throughout the crowd and smiled to herself as she watched the hook set deeply inside each of us.
"Because that's how old most of you were when you decided what you wanted to do for a living or picked the major focus of your studies in college." Netted! "You either got a job or went to college to get the kind of job you wanted, and statistics tell us that most of you are doing pretty much the same sort of job now, no matter how many years have passed since then."
"Some of you chose well. Others made decisions you later wished you had not made. Whichever decision you did make, you made it with all the wisdom, knowledge and experience of an 18 or 20 year old. The good news today is that you don't have to live with that young person's decision any longer if you don't want to." Ahhh, catch and release!
Just in case it's not obvious to you, the point of this entry is not that some of us made bad career moves when we were young. The idea here is to demonstrate one peculiar dynamic of decision making: All decisions are based on incomplete information. We might make as good a decision as we possibly can make and it might be based on all the information within our reasonable grasp at that time; but the mere passing of time always reveals additional information, some of which might have been helpful if we'd had access to it at the time we made the decision.
Our ignorance at the time of any decision likely also will limit our capacity to pursue information from outside sources. If we have no reason to believe or to expect a potential problem exists, what reason would we have to seek a solution to that problem.
The simple point of this elementary exercise is to attempt to demonstrate the primary function behind this blog: We don't know what we don't know. We do have the option of continuing the learning process so that we can know more before the end of the day today than we did when we finally fell asleep yesterday. We never will know everything, because something new will exist when tomorrow comes that did not exist today.
This simple yet irrefutable dynamic will continue to impact our lives for so long as we live. We never will escape it. The instant after our deaths in this world, a new universe of information will come into being that will evade our consciousness for so long as time exists.
Please do not be discouraged. That is not the end of this effort. Only the beginning. Many of us will not pursue knowledge, information or understanding if we do not perceive that we have a need. So before beginning this adventure together, perhaps each of us should take a few moments to consider individually how what we did not know has impacted us in the past. Do not limit yourself to your career. Ask yourself how this might have affected every area of your life. How has it influenced your relationships, your religious or political beliefs, the foods you eat, and your recreational activities.
If your experience is anything like mine, the more you think about it the more obvious this will become to you: You don't know what you don't know!
Relax. Let us embark on this adventure together, have some fun, and see if we cannot find some benefit from the process.
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