The Element of Searching for Answers, and Its Hope for Developing Knowledge, Self-Knowledge, and Knowledge For Those We Love.

There are three types of knowledge.

Knowledge.

Self-knowledge.

And knowledge concerning other people, including knowledge on behalf of those we love, or care for.

To illustrate with an example…..

If someone said to me, “Minoo, did you know that bats eat twice their weight in food every day?….

This is an example of knowledge.

Whereas if they said, “Minoo, I am afraid of bats.”....

This is an example of self-knowledge, which they are sharing with me.

Whereas if they said, “Minoo, in researching a neurological illness which recently struck someone in my family, I found out the highest incidence of this illness was experienced by the  Chamorro people of Guam 70 years ago. Between the years 1945 to 1956, the Chamorros experienced a 50-100 fold greater occurrence of this illness, which was found to be connected with consuming flying fox bats as part of their diet; these flying fox bats foraged on Cycad, a plant, the seeds of which contain a dangerous nerve toxin”……

This is an example of knowledge concerning other people, including knowledge on behalf of those we love.

Knowledge.

Self-knowledge.

Knowledge concerning those we love or care for.

We need all 3 to lead a fulfilling life.

The first type of knowledge is important.

We go to school to pick it up.

At school, we learn a lot of different things.

We learn to read and write and add and subtract and divide.

We learn about the universe and how it works.

We learn about the planet and its different peoples.

We learn about the history of different countries.

We learn games and sports and all kinds of arts – theatrical arts, musical arts, photography, painting, sculpting.

We learn about our bodies and minds and what makes them work.

If we have a good head for facts and figures, we can go on tv shows like Jeopardy with this knowledge and score big.
We can also pick up knowledge on the job.
Most of what I know of Excel, Centive, Xactly and Varicent was learned on the job.

And then there’s self-knowledge.

No less valuable.

We learn what we like to do and what we don’t like to do.

Whether we are meant to go our own way, or follow someone else’s grand plan.

What is important to us, and what is not.

Whether we like to take risks, or we like to play it safe.

What activities are in our sweet spot, and what are a stretch.

When it’s time for a change, our self-knowledge will alert us to that too.

Self-knowledge helps us make better choices.

Therapists and life coaches and psychology books and good friends can help us sharpen our self-knowledge –even just being observant about ourselves will do the trick.

When I say, “I am really happy and in the flow when I am reading, writing or walking,” I can say it confidently, because it comes from self-knowledge.

In the financial arena, when I say “I feel more secure renting an apartment than owning a home” it comes from self knowledge too.

I have learned through self knowledge, I prefer stocks to any other form of investment, and I need to live below my means, and accumulate little or no debt, in order to feel secure.

If you know you prefer real estate to any other investment; if you know you are comfortable assuming mortgage debt; and if you know you can’t stomach the ups and downs of the stock market, kudos to you for knowing yourself too.

When it comes to life choices, self-knowledge helps us understand our values and principles; self-knowledge also tells us when any area of our life is due for a change.

After my mother’s death in 2005, I identified an area of my life that was due for a change, and I made this change.

Meditation sharpens self-knowledge.

I started meditating in the fall of 2010, and since then, my self-knowledge has become more highly developed and nuanced.

For instance, I now know when I am falling prey to unhealthy curiosity versus healthy curiosity.

If I want to know someone’s age, what they are earning, what their title is, or how much they paid for something, this is unhealthy curiosity.  So I try to stop these thoughts in their tracks when I can - that is, before they become a question I pose to somebody.

Healthy curiosity, on the other hand, is when a friend asks, “Minoo, do you know if it is possible to claim people who are not family members as a dependent on your tax return, or to claim someone who is not living with you?” and I say, “hmmm….good question. Let me research and get back to you.”  So I Google it and I find the answer, which is yes, we can claim anyone as a dependent, even if they are not living with us or related to us, as long as someone else doesn’t claim them, and we can prove we were responsible for more than 50% of their annual living expenses.”

Healthy curiosity versus unhealthy curiosity.

Self-knowledge is important to finding out what we want and what we don’t want, because we can’t have everything. In almost any situation, there will be trade-offs. We will need to make a choice between having one thing or another. 

For instance, when I became an SPM consultant, I had to make a trade-off. Between being able to set my own hours, work on different assignments and pick and choose assignments – and being able to earn a steady income. I chose freedom over security and predictability – it was a choice I had to make.

Moving on to knowledge of other people, and knowledge on behalf of other people…..

No one has to hit us on the head for us to realize how important this is.

If we are self-centered and preoccupied with our own business, not only will we miss out on a lot in life, but we will fail to develop empathy, which is crucial to dealing with other people.

We have to care – and not just superficially – about other people, and their thoughts, their feelings, their situation, and their back story.

Because we all don’t come from the same mold, every person will be a learning experience.

We may discover that one person gets offended if you ask too many questions, or you tell them what to do.

Another person may get upset if you reveal something to someone else about them, that they'd rather keep private.

Only when we become a student of people, will we understand each person has to be dealt with as an individual.

Is there a simple answer to dealing with other people?

Actually there are 2 answers.

The first is simply the Golden Rule – we should do unto others what we would have others do unto us.

The other is kindness.

As Leo Buscaglia says, “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

We are kind when we give someone our full attention ….. when we are empathetic about their situation, when we help in any small way we can, when we affirm we love them, when we respect their boundaries, when we acknowledge their efforts and achievement,  and when we make sure to include them, so they do not feel marginalized, or left out.

The 14^th Dalai Lama, says, “If you shift your focus from yourself to others, extend your concern to others, and cultivate the thought of caring for the well being of others, then this will have the immediate effect of opening up your life and helping you to reach out.”

Indeed, as soon as we shift our focus from “I, me and my”, we will find a way to reach out.

An appropriate way.

A way that can make a difference.

To bring down the incidence of illness in developing countries, the Bill Gates Foundation has distributed thousands of mosquito nets to households in mosquito-infested areas.

This simple low-tech solution has had a far-reaching impact.

Answers like this come when we shift our focus from “what we want for the other person” to “what the other person wants and needs”

I learned this the hard way, when I started supplementing my maid’s income back when I was in India.

Yes, when it comes to reaching out to make the world a better place, we can do grand things, expecting grand results …. or… we can adopt the wisdom contained in these lines from This is Water by David Foster Wallace: “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

Sacrificing for someone in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.

If we can do that, we will know the joy of being someone else’s joy, someone else’s pillar, someone else’s port in a storm.

Yes, this is how we can use our knowledge, our self-knowledge, and our knowledge of what other people want and need to make the world a better place.

I will end this post with the following 2 quotes:

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

And this final one from Amy Leigh Mercree - “Share, care, hug like a bear”

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As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M….a Pearl Seeker like you.  Thanks to Ajay, Lakshmi and Subhakar for their comments on Facebook on my last post, and thanks to the rest of you for your votes.  Happy birthday to all those with birthdays in the month of April.