I can’t possibly know everything.
Yet I catch myself pretending I do all the time.
One thing I’ve never quite understood is people’s (read: my own) lack of curiosity when they encounter contradictory information. We tend to get a bit too set in our ways, don’t you think? Of course it’s one thing to argue for what you know to be true (and perhaps we should avoid debating facts…) but such arguments are always much more effective when you’ve listened to the other side.
In my view, a common obstacle to creative success (however you define that) is a lack of curiosity and a refusal to accept the fact that we can’t know everything. We need the perspectives of others to broaden our understandings.
And maybe we tell ourselves that we are open to new and contradictory ideas, but the people we interact with wouldn’t necessarily know that unless we clearly state it. It could mean the world to someone for us to say “Oh, how interesting. I never thought of it that way before. Tell me more.”
