You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Perspective is an amazing concept which too few people understand. My view is one’s perspective is the sum of all one knows based on experiences, cognition and beliefs about a subject. Hence there is no one perspective, each to their own as they say. But one thing I’ve learned is

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know( YDKWYDK)

We know what we’ve experienced, learned and observed from life’s journey but is it complete? Our daughter has a one year old Golden Doodle named Stuart. At 6 months old he had his right eye removed due to irreversible glaucoma. We thought it had to be an awful experience and would surely dramatically limit his abilities. Well Stuart didn’t get the message, he just kept on being a super active 6 months old puppy/he was a happy camper just a few days later. He didn’t seem to know what we thought we knew. Stuart is a great example of

YDKWYDK

Did you ever read the parable of 5 blind men who visited an elephant for the first time? Each one touched a different part of the elephant. Each had a completely different perspective on what an elephant is like based on what part they touched. The one who touched the leg said it’s a pillar; the tail, it’s a rope; the trunk, it’s a tree branch; the ear, it’s a hand fan and the belly felt like a wall. Each was completely right and totally wrong. If they had spent some time going around the elephant touching most of the body they would have realized

YDKWYDK

This parable encourages us to develop perspective awareness ( awareness that each of us creates a unique view of the world based on our experiences). I believe it should teach us that

YDKWYDK

And this is profoundly important to have a successful and happy life and especially be a positive part of making the world a better place to live. When we engage in the world from our narrow perspective without being willing to look around the corner, to see the world from another perspective we tend to draw conclusions which are certainly limited and often wrong and even evil and destructive. We don’t live in the world alone which makes it critical to realize

YDKWYDK

Look at what we’re experiencing today in this political season. Such extreme and often opposite perspectives on reality, and what’s right and wrong. Each group argues, yells and sometimes becomes violent because the other group has a different perspective. Could it be

YDKWYDK

Could it be that the right answer is somewhere in the middle? Could the 5 blind men have benefited from sharing their perspectives and reaching a consensus of what an elephant is Really like? I’m not saying we should abandon our deepest personal beliefs but can’t we at least recognize that an elephant‘s belly just might not be a wall ? Maybe we should all agree

YDKWYDK

Stuart seemed to/ I doubt he concluded the veterinarian was a terrorist. And while we don’t know everything it’s comforting to me to realize and believe there is One who does, praise God.