The Power of Not Knowing
“Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.’” Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves)
Given everything that has been happening in our country over the past few weeks, it’s been very difficult for me to know things. I find myself not knowing how to feel, how to react, or how to deal with the torrent of emotions that make it difficult for me to think objectively. I find myself not knowing how to support friends and colleagues who are struggling more than I am, how to enjoy myself in circles of friendship that have always lifted me up, or how to connect with my work while defending the right to do the work. I find myself not knowing how to respond when I get the texts and emails from friends in this profession who have lost their jobs or been reassigned in demeaning ways.
I was having dinner with friends a few days ago when I found myself getting irrationally angry and combative. I felt deeply defensive, and I’m not even sure what exactly I was defending. After I calmed down, one of my friends told me to try and focus on the joy that is present in my life in the middle of all the chaos. That used to be something that no one had ever needed to remind me to do. I used to know how to do that, but when I search for what used to be that instinctive skill these days, I realize that I don’t seem to know how to do that as easily as I did before this year.
Not knowing feels profoundly disempowering. Our brains like certainty, and not knowing creates deep levels of stress and anxiety. We are also socialized to reward knowing and avoid or fix not knowing as quickly as possible. We are neurologically and sociologically inclined to be fearful and even angry about not knowing. And those of us who have trained ourselves to rely on knowing as a survival strategy in a world that is not always accepting of us…we are the most likely to feel anything but good about not knowing.
I’ve been working around the clock to try and know things. I’ve been reading every Executive Order, researching laws and issues, talking with people about the best courses of action amidst unprecedented disruptions, and brainstorming strategies with clients and peers. But even after amassing all the knowing I could absorb, I was still left with this incredible feeling of not knowing.
I’ve researched curiosity and the power of asking questions for years. I’ve taught hundreds of workshops on harnessing the power of asking questions to increase intelligence, reduce cognitive bias, and deepen empathy. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that activating the power of curiosity required getting genuinely and fully comfortable with the discomfort of not knowing. I’m very comfortable with not knowing as long as I can cure the not knowing with researching and learning. But I’ve never really had to get comfortable with not knowing when there’s not much I can do to cure the not knowing. I don’t know how to not know and be okay with not knowing.
So, I’ve been practicing the deliberate acknowledgment of not knowing. I’m still researching and gathering as much information as possible, but I start the process by reminding myself that I can know more stuff, but I still may not know what to do afterward. I’m still feeling a myriad of emotions every day, but I remind myself that I can feel all the feels and still not know how to process the feelings. When I get deeply angry or anxious, I remind myself that I can be angry or anxious without knowing how to feel better.
Not knowing can feel disempowering, but getting comfortable with not knowing is incredibly empowering. The part of the brain that is in a tizzy about not knowing can reallocate resources to doing something else, anything else. When someone asked me yesterday how to respond to a particularly vexing question about DEI that her CEO had asked her, I said, “I have no clue how to respond to that, but let’s make up an answer together.” She laughed. I laughed. And we came up with a pretty good response together.
How much stress and anxiety could you shed if you embrace the power of not knowing? Not knowing doesn’t make you ignorant when there is no way to know some of the answers we are seeking right now. We are in the middle of asking questions we never imagined would even need to be asked. Let’s get comfortable with not knowing. Let’s embrace that not knowing how to feel or what to do these days may be the sanest response available to us right now. Let’s get comfortable with making up answers as we go because our made-up answers are probably exactly what the world needs today.
