The Ultimate Never-Ending Story?

by David Brewster

Published on this site: February 25th, 2004

I knew it was coming. I recognised the horrible truth a year or so ago but I thought I would be able to keep it to myself for a while yet. Then, without warning, confirmation was delivered from the back seat of the car. "Daddy", said my youngest. "You don't know everything".

With that blunt statement, the final pane in my window of illusion was shattered. The loss of my five-year-old's faith meant there was no longer a single person on the planet who saw me as a font of all knowledge. Thus it was time to put years of kidding myself behind me and declare officially: "I don't know everything - and I never will".

And do you know what? Putting up this new window is strangely liberating.

Gone is the complexity which goes with trying to pretend I have - or ever will have - all the answers. Gone is the need to protect a position: to try to mould the world to fit my beliefs - rather than the other way around. Gone is the misconception that, with all this information and technology at my fingertips, there can be nothing new to learn.

These have been replaced by anticipation of endless opportunities to learn. The realisation that every unexpected outcome is not a personal assault on my beliefs but rather another piece in an endless puzzle. It's like having discovered a bottomless bottle of a good red.

Paradoxically, this newfound freedom makes looking at the way the world works a whole lot more simple. It's like living in successfully liberated country: there are fewer rules - though still enough to maintain control.

Now perhaps you're thinking that I'm stating the bleeding obvious. Surely everyone knows that learning, like life, is a journey, not a destination? I'm not so sure.

I look around me and I see politicians - on all sides - driven by ideology - with very little apparent willingness to learn. I see business leaders and senior managers in a misguided struggle to find the 'ultimate' solution which will finally get their business 'finished'. I see share traders who see every company announcement as a full-stop rather than just another comma along the way.

There seems to me ample opportunity for people to free themselves from the shackles of being unquestionably right.

(By the way, I'm not for a moment suggesting that we should dispense with our beliefs. Rather that we should be open to questioning them frequently and either strengthen them or remould them according to the answers we discover.)

How does this philosophical rant affect you? Only you can truly answer that (or perhaps one of your children). In the same way that simplicity is ultimately a matter of choice, the willingness to continue learning is also a choice.

At some stage you will come to a fork in the road. I suggest you listen to that back seat driver and take the one which disappears over the horizon.

David Brewster is a Simplicity expert. He helps managers and business owners find ways to simplify the way they work, the products they create and the way they communicate. His client's work more effectively and have more, happier customers. David regularly writes and speaks on simplifying work. Downloads and resources are available at his website: http://www.businesssimplification.com.au.