“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters — don’t wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.”
EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 13a
This quote above from Epictetus reminds us that in certain situations, we should be okay with coming across as uninformed. The Daily Stoic book explains this wisdom in the context of our media consumption — that we feel compelled to stay up to date on everything when we really don’t have to. It’s impossible of course, and it drives us nuts, and I wrote about this yesterday: it’s better to focus on mastering a few things rather than trying to master all the things.
The only reason we try to keep up with all this information is because somehow we’ve decided it’s necessary. But necessary according to who? It’s not required by law, it’s not required to be a good person, and it’s not required to be happy. It’s not even required if we want to be maverick entrepreneur-types! We convince ourselves that we have to accept this information overload and ingest it all in order to be successful in life — but we just don’t. It’s a lie.
And think of the peace — and the mental clarity — that would be gained by being clueless about unimportant things, and keeping things simple! Author Ryan Holiday puts it beautifully: “How much more rested and present would you feel if you were no longer excited and outraged by every scandal, breaking story, and potential crisis?”
Stupid at work
I’m going to interpret this quote from Epictetus even further. I’m going to posit that it’s okay, and beneficial even, to appear uninformed when it comes to matters at work.
If you’re like me, your company is a dynamic place full of many, many projects and initiatives. They are incredibly complex and time-intensive programs led by very clever people, but there’s never enough resources (i.e. manpower, time) to get everything done. Someone asks a question, you raise your hand because you know the answer, and… you guessed it. Suddenly you’re sucked in, now assigned to this new task — with barely enough time to get back to your core job responsibilities.
I’m not advocating for shirking your teammates or not helping out at the office. It’s important to be a team player. But I am suggesting that it’s okay to carefully consider what you’re willing to volunteer your time for. Knowing all the answers (or appearing to) can be dangerous — you get enlisted to new projects without even realizing it. A little bit of intentional clueless-ness can protect you from “extraneous matters” as the sage above put it, or in other words: work projects that you don’t want to join, i.e. because you have a life outside the office and your job is not everything.
Great post! I agree 100% that we don’t need to be that informed about everything going on in the world. This brings us undue stress with which we have no control over. Following the stoic values of controlling only what is within our power. Tim Ferris had a great idea in that he never read or watched the news. It made for great conversation at work or with friends to ask, so what is going on today?
Exactly! Rather than trying to keep on top of everything ourselves, why not just let a few of our wise friends whose opinions we trust and value, distill & share the news with us?
Thanks for commenting Tim!