Humility is often an overlooked virtue. Confidence, slight arrogance, and high conviction in simple ideas make for a charismatic personality. Humility and being quiet about your achievements while knowing the limitations of your knowledge make you a less attractive person. The former is like a company with good marketing but mediocre products. The latter is like a company with good products but mediocre marketing. I believe the goal is to be both.
There’s the age-old adage by Aristotle that “The more we learn, the more we uncover just how vast the unknown truly is.” A few thousand years later, Dunning and Kruger published a paper that showed people who are incompetent in a field are often unaware of their own incompetence. It seems this phenomenon has existed for an incredibly long time, and for those of us with good reason, it’s important to be aware of it.
For those of us who’ve met individuals who come across as know-it-alls or think they are better than others just because they learned a few more things, it can be quite irksome to interact with them.
I believe that it’s a virtue to admit when one simply has no opinion on a matter or to share that things are simply not as complex as they’re made to seem.
I think it’s only natural for people to desire simple ideas, (false) certainty, and an air of superiority. After all, people would rather (instinctively, or perhaps subconsciously) follow a leader who is confidently wrong than one who is unsure and right.
I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge. I’d rather be roughly right than precisely wrong.
It’s okay to not know something. It’s okay if what you know isn’t that impressive once it’s revealed. It’s okay to not know something about everything. Just don’t put yourself on a pedestal from which you’re bound to fall. It’s great to know something that others do not. Feel free to share it with those who will benefit from this knowledge.
Telling ourselves we are better than we really are is a surefire way to be humbled. It’s also a surefire way to be wrong. I think that we should be confident about our abilities, but knowing the limitations of that is equally important.
I think the world could do great with a little less arrogance and a little more humility.
Disclaimer: The ideas presented in this post are solely my personal perspective and have not been substantiated by any verifiable evidence. I’m not a therapist and I do not pretend to be one. Please form your own opinions on such matters. I’m merely reflecting on my current thought processes.