Monday, March 9, 2009

What I Don't Know...

Posted by Terry McNichols
When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me. John Wesley
This reminds me of something that struck me profoundly when I was in graduate school. My professor drew a pie shape on the board and divided the pie into the following segments: what I know, what I don't know, and what I don't know that I don't know. Most of us operate with knowledge of only the first two segments and are unaware of how what we don't know that we don't know can influence us even more profoundly than the other two areas. Many of our thoughts, emotions, and knee-jerk reactions that don't seem to make sense come from what we don't even realize we don't know.

I think that therapy, self-help books, meditation and prayer, sermons, any kind of awareness-enhancing growth moves us into the opportunity of expanding what we don't know that we don't know. If all we do is move the information into the "I don't know" category, we have at least opened up the possibility of change.
(Photo by David Reece, shared via Flickr)

1 comment:

pysanki.blogspot.com said...

Too true. I just had to read Fierce Conversations for school and was amazed at how much I learned about myself as well as communitcaion.