It’s Okay to Say ‘I Don’t Know’

Especially now with Google, and things are so easy to look up.

Saying “Hmmm, that’s a good question. Let me look that up” is so much better than trying to bullshit your way through something these days.

There have been many types of people I can’t stand throughout the years…

The phony, the always too loud guy, the close talker, the story topper, and the overly flamboyant look-at-me type are a few I think of off the top of my head, but at this point in my life I’m ready to say it’s the know-it-all that I hate the most.

You don’t always have to know everything about everything.

Seriously. Nobody likes being around that.

Don’t feel an obligation to have knowledge on every little thing.

It’s okay to say you don’t know. I’m positive it would be a refreshing thing for those around you to hear you say that every once in awhile as well.

It’s like you’re always trying to prove something. Every question lobbed into the air is a challenge that must be met with first hand knowledge, experience, and/or wisdom.

Then I look it up and you’re not even close.

And 99.999999% of the time the topic has zero bearing on how we live our lives.

At this point if you are still in my circle as a family member or a friend I’m not gonna be any more or less impressed with you because you have a surprisingly random offhand knowledge of the duck billed platypus.

My uncle just turned 78 and he’s still the smartest person in the room anytime he walks into one. His greatest personal strength might just be that he’s secure enough to know that. He doesn’t get bogged down with arguing any of his thoughts or opinions. He doesn’t get defensive. He never cuts into a conversation with an ‘actually…’ to correct somebody.

He’ll never make anyone around him feel stupid, and I’m sure he’s had plenty of opportunities.

He doesn’t speak a whole lot. When he does everyone stops what they’re doing to listen.

Certain people are like that.

My household isn’t…

It’s always a race to speak. If somebody has already beat you there it becomes a competition to see who can talk the loudest…all with little kid static, dinner cooking, and a dog barking in the background.

It’s impossible to get a word in most of the time. The moments it kills me the most are when I have the perfect dry joke to throw in there and I can’t find a window to do it.

Often times I’ll just say it out loud anyway, in a normal tone of voice, and listen as it gets blown away by the gusts of the conversation. Similar to a golfer dropping blades of grass into the air to check the wind direction on the course.

I’m a happily married family man…

Next Sentence: Between my wife, mother-in-law, four kids, AND ME, there is a lot of know-it-all action during a common dinner gathering at my place.

It can drive me crazy some nights.

Looking in the mirror a little bit…I think I hate it so much because I do it too. It’s one of the things I can’t stand about myself…The insecurity of not merely being satisfied with what I believe in and what I think is right.

I need others to hear it and validate me for believing it as well…Not good.

In fairness to myself I’ve gotten way better at recognizing it and not falling into that trap in the past few years, but the tendency still lingers around me.

And because I have focused on it so much within myself, it drives me that much more nuts when people around me exhibit those traits.

Just be good with not knowing something.

Understand what constitutes a big issue and what constitutes a small one.

Be okay with saying “I guess we’ll just have to respectfully disagree” on any small issues.

Certain things are facts and certain things are opinions…

If an argument over when a movie is made results in multiple websites giving 1996 as the answer, that doesn’t mean your original opinion (and certainty) of 1992 is correct because ‘some films take four years to make.’

Just take your “L”.

It’s not subjective at that point.

Not like arguing chicken over steak.