Are You Really As Clever As What You Think?

Marcus Aurelius wrote ‘people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them’. Sometimes people are difficult and hard to deal with. For me the most frustrating people to put up with are the know it alls! We’ve all come across people who think they know it all, people who aren’t willing to accept anyone else’s opinion or advice because they know for a fact they’re right.

I was greeted by one such person on Sunday. I didn’t try and preach to them about what they should be doing, telling them that they don’t have it all figured out. This person is so young and it would be wrong for me to piss on there bonfire. They have BIG aspirations and that’s great, because if they apply themselves properly they will undoubtedly go a long way in reaching their goals. Also, for their age, they are very intelligent… and they know it. Even though they are very intelligent, they have an awful lot to learn about life and how the world works in general. It would help if they remembered what Socrates said: ‘All I know, is that I know nothing’.

Always presume you don’t know something and accept your current knowledge limitations. Drop your ego. Humble yourself and think there will always be people smarter than myself, I’m just a small fish in an enormous pond.

You might be clever, but you’re probably not as clever as what you think you are. And neither am I!