Be an idiot while you still can!

Many young people are scared to ask too many questions or make mistakes.

I don’t understand this. Maybe they think it’ll be embarrassing, that it’ll reveal their naivety. Or maybe they’re too proud. Or maybe they just think they know it all already.

This is a mistake.

Naivety is a gift. It’s a blank canvas waiting to be painted. Harnessed correctly it’s a window into creativity, innovation, unique new boundary-pushing perspective.

When you’re 5 years old you are constantly asking ‘why?’ - you’re putting the pieces of the world together constantly. As we get older we lose that curiosity, the wonder of putting the pieces of the world together.

One day many of us lose the luxurious affordance of naivety. You get burnt, you think you have it all figured out, maybe you become jaded or cynical or stuck in your ways. Neuroplasticity slows.

Eventually you may reach a point where you become the superior in the room, where your subordinates begin to look to you for the answers, and it becomes harder to be the one asking simple questions.

This is why it’s important to ask as many utterly idiotic questions as you can while you’re still ‘young enough’ to get away with it.

I’m talking specifically to anyone still in their 20s and 30s - your #1 goal at this age is to learn, to fail, to find out. Time is too precious to avoid the risk; the greater risk is not knowing.

And when you get older you should keep asking questions. I admire this quality in some of my greatest role models - the ability to maintain a childhood sense of wonderment across an entire lifetime.

Don’t go gentle into that good night.

Never stop putting yourself out there. Never be afraid to ask a question, to take the risk of finding out. Be thankful for the gift of naivety.

Be an idiot while you still can :-)

Peace,
Ramsey