Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The wisdom in ignorance

 As a kid, for obvious reasons, I saw adults as all knowing and flawless.  They never got in trouble nor did they ever make mistakes - only I and the rest of the kids in the world did.

It would be decades later before I discovered that adults were actually very flawed and that their mistakes had much far reaching consequences than the ones I had ever made as a kid. 

So I spent a significant portion of my early adult years, from about 20 to somewhere in my early 30's,  trying very hard to look and act like the person I thought I was supposed to be.  The words "I don't know" or even "No" rarely...I mean never....fell from my lips.  I was always running..always doing...trying to avoid being found out. 

You see looking back at my younger self, I know it was because I was scared.  That people would see how flawed and ignorant I really was.  That once this secret was revealed I would no longer be welcome in this elite society I had so eagerly rushed to join.

If we are all cars on this highway of life, then during this period, it was a very insecure me that was driving.   Three totaled cars later, I'm lucky the DPS still allows me on the road. 

So when did it all change for me?  You would think it was the totaled cars, sigh, but it wasn't. It was a process.  A process that started with the birth of my first child.

Like all other things in my life, I needed to be a competent and capable new mother.  You know what I mean...the Dont tell me anything, I know it all kind of attitude.

Well, I think my daughter's goal in her first year of life was to make sure I realized that I knew absolutely nothing.  She came into this world colicky and when I say colicky, I mean screaming every hour on the hour.

When I wasn't looking for plane tickets to ship her off to my parents, I was holding her tightly next to me and sitting with the fact that I had no clue how to fix this.  Even more mortifying was the fact that I couldn't pretend to have this situation under control. 


 It was during this time that I discovered that when you ask for help - people help.

And so begins my true evolution into adulthood.  My relationships became stronger when I let them see my cracks.  And every time my weaknesses were greeted with acceptance, I became more comfortable in sharing them and in accepting them.

Ten years later, I am still evolving.  I understand and accept that I am flawed.  I know that I don't know everything and I am comfortable in saying the words "I don't know."  

Actually, there's something freeing about those three words.  It allows me the opportunity to find out what I don't know because it is of interest to me not because I am fearful of being seen as ignorant.

And it allows me the opportunity to be OK with the fact that I don't know and don't need to know everything. You know the old saying, "With knowledge comes responsibility?"  Well what I've discovered is that sometimes, I don't want the responsibility.  If I figure out how to use the lawn mower, then ultimately I would end up cutting the grass.  If I knew how to change the air filters in the house, I would be up on that ladder every few months, changing the filters. 

Sometimes, ignorance is very blissful.






 


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