January 30, 2010

The More You Know


I must be getting older. I must be, because time keeps passing and I am not dead yet. (insert British accent)"Not dead yet!" And one thing I am noticing as time goes on, is that the more I learn about any given subject the more I realize that there is a ton of stuff I don't know out there. When you are young and cocky sometimes you take on a know-it-all attitude about things. I experience this almost daily with my teenaged son. He's pretty much an expert in his own mind about most everything out there. It's tiresome.

I remember when I was a teenager and I took French at Provo highschool from Miseur Burnah. I learned fast and the vocabulary came easily. I was feeling pretty spiffy with my new French words. Then when it came to verb conjugation I realized how much harder this was going to be. The more you know- the more you realize how much you have to learn. A little bit of knowledge in one certain area is sometimes a dangerous thing. That is one thing my husband is always saying. Patients see a commercial for a new drug on TV, or watch an episode of 20/20 and come into his office acting like experts.

I used to think that people were often too open minded. If you are open to every idea than you are sure to fall for a lot of bad ideas right? But that was surely the old me who was too shut off and not listening to anything that didn't come out of my own brain. I was constantly using my shut down button. Listen to anything and you'll fall for anything was the way I saw it. I still see some of my family members thinking this way. We all learned it from the same place. Now I feel like my eyes have been opened and I listen before judging too soon. It's not like I compromise my standards. I don't. I just realize that I don't know it all and so the only way to learn more is to listen. I just thought I should share that with you. What? You shut down before reading to the end? Poor you!

4 comments:

Carrie Stuart said...

I think this is the wisdom that comes with age...although I don't believe everyone is gifted with it, as I've known plenty of closed minded older people. But I do think that if you are willing to learn...teachable...then your mind will be opened. I used to think I had all the answers. I thought it was all pretty black and white. I though my politics were pretty straight forward, too. The older I get, the more people I care about...the more I realize how little I'm really sure about

LOL...my WV is trist. Really?

Kelly said...

Your what is trist? (sad in french)... Confused...

Carrie Stuart said...

Sorry..."word verification". My word verification was trist. Some of them are pretty funny...or ironic.

Kelly said...

Oh! Thanks for clarifying. That is funny. I have had similar experience with 'WV'. Thanks for teaching me a new blogging word. There is so much I have to learn about this blogging world (ha ha).