Will being Stupid embrace your Intellectual Humility?

The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Why does your boss never acknowledge you? You never hesitate to take up that extra work that is not even listed in your key responsibility areas. Neither did you compromise on your own work. Nor was hesitant to add a little bit of you delivering work in your signature style. Eventually, nothing mattered. You wonder why?

Why is your child unhappy with you? No matter how much you try. They are easily bored within seconds. The noises, jumping and the nagging drive you crazy. Especially when you plant yourself for some quick entertainment, you believe you deserve at the end of the day.

Why would your mother always scream at you? You as it is compromise on most of the things just because your mom forbids it. The only day when you want to go crazy with your friends at an annual party is also timed? This nudges the limit.

To identify yourselves in one of the above scenarios, we must learn a few terms that explain the psychology behind human thoughts generally. While there are pretty lengthy theories under each, I have tried to make it simple and cool (in my audience’s perspective

The Dunning Kruger Effect – When you assume you know more than you actually know and take up more than you should. This would break you down completely, leaving you handicapped, needing support even for your basic needs.

Imposter Syndrome – when you underestimate your efforts for luck and deny being the reason for the success you earned

Intellectual Humility – when you acknowledge others’ ignorance with your patience and zero Judgment. Then make a consolidated solution with all inputs validated by facts and personal experiences to help them out.

Then there is also this Bias Blind Spot when you recognize the impact of biases on the judgment of others while ignoring your own.

What we are trying to understand here is that the person you think is offending you, might in fact have a genuine reason to be that way. Most of the time, they are merely reactions or consequences of your own actions. But we are ignorant of their perspective. Would you like to revisit these scenarios with a perspective?

Why does your boss never acknowledge you? 

You perhaps are the most productive of the group, but seldom acknowledged for your efforts. If not a reward or remuneration, the least you expect is a pat on your shoulder or a proud mention in one of the meetings. The longer you long for it, your daily dose of motivation slips, and your productivity graph declines. Furthermore, you are promptly listed for poor performance. Any idea?

Perhaps, you let your boss take you for granted. Your acceptance of delegatory tasks simply put you in a less authoritative position. While it is difficult to say NO to power, you can always openly demonstrate your capability for productive work in your key responsible assignment. Help him know you, please him not.

Why is your child unhappy with you?

An entertainment to you could just be watching a song or movie and repeat after some lame dialogues. The kid needs diverse entertainment and physical activity. They possibly cannot frozen-face the idiot box. They are curious and love the interaction. That’s exactly why they are addicted to smartphones. They respond to their gestures, the taps, and clicks, which we as a responsible family lack to provide.

Don’t we as adults hate and miss all the fun of our childhood? So put yourselves in their shoes and go play with them. Get creative, engage them, and participate in a lot of activities to keep them and the child in you, happy.

Why would your mother always scream at you?

While you might be out enjoying a great party safe with friends, she has no clue about your environment. When you lose track of time and is already late for you to reach home, you are just warming u at the party.

Every second after your time limit, is her anticipating you back home. The more the seconds grow, so does her fears and anger. You give her the meltdown and you can’t possibly get angry for her shouting at you. Can you? Whose responsibility was that to not communicate your clean plan for getting wasted for a day?

Always put yourself in others’ shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too.

Rachel Grady

Now imagine, you are an expert on a subject. You will have solutions for every challenge that is thrown your way on that subject. But to master it, you should have solutions in place foreseeing possible challenges with a perspective of a novice.

As someone new to that subject, a novice, on his learning curve will make plenty of mistakes, perhaps some very silly. But that necessarily need not be the scale you weigh them with nor is the challenge ignorable. Instead of slamming them for an error that you assumed illogical, foresee potential challenges from a layman perspective and provide solutions with your expertise. Showcase scenarios that would lead to such an error and how can that be avoided. This could only be possible if you dial back your expertise to think like a novice on that subject.

Dial back your expertise. Expose the over-confidence in your thoughts. Become a better person by being stupid. Not all novice in your life is, but the world is full of them.

Lets Make Phew Changes, Shall we?