But I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

Lies We Believe About Ourselves and Others

Day Four: But I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

The truth is none of us do. We all kind of think we do, though.

We know the way to fix the government and steer the country into a better tomorrow. We know what words to use to speak about others. We know the difference between habitual and non-habitual sin.

Building a world towards empathy means having the courage to admit our blind spots. Like accepting the ways we aren’t perfect in terms of racism, we need to accept the limits of our own intuition and sense of self. It’s a further complexity to the paradox of the existence. The acceptance of admitting what you don’t know, inasmuch as we accept what we do, is the key to undoing all the topics we’ve discussed.

We know we’re not safe, but we don’t know how or to what degree. (Week One Day 1) This is why the idolatry of safety is such a temptation. We’re so scared of what we don’t know that we fall quickly into worship of the things that tell us we know it all – we know where the danger is and how to avoid it. When we peel that back, we’re left with the stark truth that we don’t know much of anything. And when we don’t know, we start to hate a little less and love a little more.

We think we can fix everything until we’re fighting tooth and nail with our loved ones who are depressed. When we realize neurotypical brains and sick brains don’t work the same way, we begin to uncoil the lie that they’re always wrong and we’re always right.

When we admit what we don’t know, the truth becomes a lot less one-dimensional. Political parties start to make more sense. Minority groups seem a little bigger, or at least a little more worth listening to.

You have no idea what you’re doing, do you? What to believe and who to vote for? How to get to heaven or how to avoid hell?

The less we obsess over knowing everything there is to know, the less we wrestle each other to find the one way to live, the more time we have to just exist. To watch sunsets in awe. To hold hands in wonder. To be held in the complete thrill of taking each moment as it comes.