Sovereignty by Ryan Michler

Author:Ryan Michler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublishDrive
Published: 2018-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

HUMILITY

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

-Epictetus

The longer I’m alive, the more I realize how little I actually know. Sure, I like to put on a front. All of us feel good when we know what we’re talking about. But make no mistake, there is a huge difference between knowing what we’re talking about and thinking or, even worse, pretending we know what we’re talking about.

Knowing what we’re talking about requires effort. Through this effort to gain new understanding, and with a desire and ability to act on that understanding, we earn the right to that knowledge. However, pretending we know what we’re talking about requires only deceit.

Doesn’t it feel wonderful to deceive? When we trick people into thinking we know more than we do, we receive the accolades and praise of the unsuspecting victims of our deceit. Just as damaging is the fact that we deceive ourselves. When a man lies to himself about how much he actually knows, he robs himself of the opportunity to learn new information that would propel his life forward rather than simply make him feel good about himself in the moment.

Why then do we, as men, work so hard to maintain the appearance of knowledge? One word: ego. To put it frankly, we refuse to look foolish. Therefore, we’d prefer to run the risk associated with making something up rather than appearing dumb.

Somewhere along our journey from boys to men, we transform from “inquisitive” to “know-it-all.” We begin to worry about what others think of us and how we portray ourselves to the people we care about. Couple that with the fact that society would have you believe you should know it all and that, somehow, if you don’t already know how to do X, Y, and Z, you’re not a “real man.”

As evidence, you see that most of society does not mock toddlers when they fall or young boys when they mispronounce a word. They’re not expected to know it all, so they get a pass. But there comes a time in our lives when the passes expire. When that day comes, we do the only thing we know how to do when we don’t know the answer: we make something up.

We lie because we remember the first time someone mocked or ridiculed us for not knowing. Rather than experience the feeling of embarrassment or rejection again, we utilize one of our most basic and frequently used defense mechanisms—our imagination.

That’s all an ego is, anyway—it’s delusion, it’s a fantasy land. We begin to create a false reality in our own minds about how good we are and how much we actually know. If we tell ourselves something long enough, we start to believe it. This tactic preserves our ego, but it destroys our sovereignty. We become slaves to ourselves and the egomaniacs we create.

I know how this works firsthand. As I was building my financial planning practice, I was trained to give all the answers (whether or not I actually knew them).

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