Reflections/Jonathan Gramling
Know What You Don’t Know
One of the principles that I learned growing up was to “Know What I Don’t Know.’ I have tried to follow this precept, consciously or not, since a young age. And the fundamental driving force is truth or from another point of view, reality.
Knowing what you don’t know is something that one should become aware of as early in life as possible. In some ways, I think it is something that is born within us. When you don’t know something, read a book or nowadays, Google it. But it is something that needs to be maintained and nurtured lest the ways of the world corrupt that innate sense and one loses touch with reality in a way.
Part of knowing what you don’t know is learning where your world ends — at least the limits of what your five senses are telling you — and the rest of the world begins. It’s an understanding of how big and complex the world is and how small we are within it. It’s an understanding that the world does not revolve around us. Rather, we are an equal player — and partner — in the world around us.
Over time, we may come to know a lot of things and be able to guess what other things are based upon the limited information that we have at hand. But even then, it is important to know what is a guess — and how much a far fetched guess it is — and what is a learned fact. Lead with the learned facts and use the guesses to the extent that the risk of being wrong is too high.
There was an individual in the community who wasn’t fond of me to say the least. And she would often criticize me for being a “know-it-all.” Well the fact of the matter was I definitely knew that I wasn’t a “know-it-all.” And I was acutely aware of that which I didn’t know. And so I spoke up when I knew something, but was quiet when it came to guessing.
Now I am a very learned person. I took about 200 college credits and have interviewed 3,000 people or more, not to speak of having conversations with a multitude of others and reading the news every day. And so I know a lot. But I am also aware that what I know is a drop in the bucket of all there is to know in the universe.
Now since, I did know a lot of things, I would speak up a lot — knowing also the difference between fact and opinion — but only talking about things that I knew. It might have appeared that I was a “know-it-all,” but in fact, I wasn’t. I was just well-informed.
Knowing what I don’t know has led me to ask a lot of questions in life. As a journalist, it leads me to ask a lot of questions of the people I interview because what is said creates an image in my mind of what is being said and I keep probing until that image becomes complete. And because I know where my world ends, it is easier to interview people because I am then able to understand their lives through active listening. I am able to let people speak for themselves within the articles that I write because I know where I end and they begin.
In work situations — I also do non-profit accounting work — I have always asked questions of the world around me. It is the only way that I can get accurate information — and all of the information — in order for my work to be of any use to the people who count on it to make their own decisions. I know what I don’t know and don’t make assumptions of what it is. And so I ask a lot of questions.
I sometimes feel that some people think asking questions is a sign of weakness, that somehow it reflects badly on them. If they don’t know something and show it, it could be taken as a sign of incompetence or that they aren’t qualified. And then they go and make a decision that negatively impacts the organization because they didn’t ask questions on that — if they are being honest with themselves — which they didn’t know, a mistake that sometimes isn’t discovered until after they left the organization.
But I think asking questions is a sign of intelligence and maturity. It shows a sign of concern for the greater good. And it shows a sign of always wanting to self-improve. So know what you don’t know and ask questions. It’s good for you and the people and world around you.