Don’t take “know” for an answer.

Whenever you accept information you didn’t research for yourself, you are potentially warping your view of the world away from reality. Even if that “knowledge” came from a trusted source who claims it to be first hand, they may have misinterpreted what they experienced.

We’re all human so we are all fallible. Our senses can be mistaken. Our minds can create assumed connections where none exist. We put things in context and take perspectives based on our unique personal experience. And so, anything we know is really just our best guess.

But the more experience we have, and the more we see a perceived connection repeat itself, the greater our confidence grows. Still, the conditions under which we originally observed our “knowledge” may change in time, so what was once true no longer is. Or, once we accept something as true, we then expect to see it and will manufacture it out of observation just as we see images of animals in clouds and faces in the windows of buildings.

We do this because it is a powerful survival trait. If we had to reconsider every bit of knowledge from scratch every time we called upon it, we would be gridlocked and could never build greater understandings by building new knowledge blocks on foundations already laid.

Statistically, for the span of time of our lives, taking “know” for an answer works when we have originally gathered that knowledge for ourselves or have accepted it from another whom time has proven to see the truth and who is seldom mistaken.

Nonetheless, accepting something as knowledge based solely on one second had source, or even upon one first-hand experience without even re-evaluating can create enormous problems.

Lastly, no matter how many times your knowledge has proven itself, it is worthwhile to reevaluate it once in a while so that your understanding is updated when situations change or better explanations become available.

Discover hundreds of little insights, humorous moments, and catchy sayings in my book, Snippets and Bits.