Category: Weather

Many people don’t like to admit that they don’t know something. However, there are advantages to saying the words ‘I don’t know’. What are they?

Knowing things is very useful. In fact, much of our society has been built around people knowing things. Engineers build bridges because they understand how materials behave. We have remarkably accurate warnings regarding extreme weather events because meteorologists understand how weather patterns evolve. And so on.

If knowing things is powerful, then the obvious corollary is that not knowing things displays weakness. Or so it might seem.

Indeed, we often behave as though that were the case. People often go through life projecting an air of certainty that, at times, might make it difficult to disagree or argue with them.

Naturally, this is a problem if they don’t actually know what they claim to know. That can be potentially embarrassing for them, or problematic or even dangerous for those around them.

So there is a time and a place for revealing your ignorance. After all, you only are ignorant until you learn, and learning often starts with the phrase ‘I don’t know’.

There are some things that are essentially unknowable. We can predict the future, but those predictions are just as likely to be wrong as they are to be right. Events happen all the time that catch experts off guard. Some examples include stock market crashes, sports upsets, medical diagnoses, and surprising political elections.

If you know something, it is important to state clearly that you are in possession of the facts. However, it can be just as important that when you don’t know, you say so just as clearly.

Can you think of benefits of saying ‘I don’t know’?

Related questions: When was the last time you said ‘I don’t know’? Know or don’t know? How do you deal with uncertainty?