I don’t mean people who have discourse with, ask questions of, or challenge expert information, I’m talking about the kinds of people who – when confronted with hard fact of any kind have a knee-jerk reaction to blast “No, I’m More Right” as loud as they possibly can.
Hello, Futility? I’ve found you an avatar.
Face it. There will always be people who know more than you, for certain categories of knowledge. Learning to deal with this is far better than fostering the need to be better, to know more, and to be right. More people will be willing to write you off than face you down if you’re someone who behaves this way.
It’s a good idea to try and catch this behaviour when it appears. I’ve certainly had moments of oppressive certainty when dealing with others – it’s part of being a confident person, and there’s benefit in this… To a degree. Just as there’s no weakness in talking about failure, there is small benefit to refusing to grow through adjusting your world view.
There’s certainly benefit to having conviction. That’s not what I’m talking about here. Certainty needs to be cautiously placed, and consistently examined to ensure it’s a worthwhile investment of energy. Being certain the sun will come up again, for example, is well worth it.
Refusing to accept help with something because you’re “one of the few people understands how this works” – that’s downright idiocy at best. Don’t be one of those people. You’re often-embarrassed friends will thank you.
