The Freedom of Not Knowing and The Responsibility of Learning

Recently I took a new role at work. After a decade in the same role, I was used to knowing the answer to just about every question that arose. Suddenly, I was in a position where I barely knew anything—at least that’s how I felt. Every day at 8:30 I meet with my direct reports, and every day there is another question I don’t have an answer to. That means every day I have to look at someone needing and answer and respond with a deeply humbling response. “I don’t know.”

At the beginning, I felt this to be a failure on my part. I’m the boss. I should know the answer. I should at least know the direction to go. But so often, I had nothing. I didn’t know the ins and outs of the department. I didn’t have the necessary history to light the path forward. I felt I had nothing, and wasn’t sure where to get the information. I left every day feeling depleted and exhausted by my ignorance.

Now, I’m not saying I didn’t know anything. I have a certain set of skills that helps me naviagte unknown waters. I can make it through ok, but it sure isn’t comfortable. You’ve probably been there too. Maybe you’re there now. You don’t have the answer and you don’t know where to get the answer. Your only answer is that you don’t know, and you feel like that isn’t enough.

But it is. Because we simply can’t have all the answers. The sooner you and I accept that, the sooner we will find the freedom we need to learn.

Here’s one way to think about it. There is freedom in not knowing, and a responsibility to learn. No one knows it all. For example, I’ve been watching baseball my entire life. I played as a kid. I watch 162 games of my favorite team each season and probably another 75 games on top of that, not including all the playoff games. I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I’m a big fan and I watch intently. Still every season something happens on the field that I didn’t know was possible. A play is made and the ump makes a call and I learn something new. Even lifelong baseball men—men who played the game and coached throughout all levels well into their golden ages—know each pitch offers something to learn, every situation has so many possible answers it’s anyone’s best guess as to which will work. In other words, baseball is a game for which the only right answer a lot of the time is, “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

Your life and mine is the same way. We’re all asking questions no one can really answer, and our only responsibility is to try and find out.

There can be such intense pressure to know everything, and we so deeply long to live up to that challenge. But who likes a know-it-all? It’s better to answer honestly and then go and find out than to fall into the trap of saying something that may lead in the wrong direction. What would you rather have? A guide who considers the path before leading you down the dark or one who runs headlong without looking at the map?

Only God knows it all, and we are not him. So let go of the anxiousness of knowing and lean into the freedom of not knowing. Then go and learn and then teach others.