I don’t know.
It might be one of the worst sentences. Or maybe, the best.
It could be that moment of dread when you’re asked, you’re without an answer, and the shame of feeling stupid settles in.
Or it could be that moment where you’ve found the edge of your known world (which is what they call adventure).
Consider what’s possible if you remove the period and add a comma.
I don’t know, but I will some day.
I don’t know, but I know a bit.
I don’t know, do you?
I don’t know, and I’m so glad I don’t.
I don’t know, but I’m curious to find out.
I don’t know, and I’m more than what I know.
I don’t know, but we do.
I don’t know, and my best work always happens in this moment.
I don’t know when followed by a period, leads to panicking, hesitating, halting. End of sentence.
I don’t know when followed by a comma, leads to inquiring, exploring, learning.
Contrary to popular opinion, unknowing is a good place to be! It’s the frontier edge of the future you’re looking for.
As Graham Greene says, “When we are not sure, we are alive.”
What’s your relationship like these days with what's uncertain, unsolved, undefined, and unknown? How are you and unknowing doing—on speaking terms? avoiding each other at night? got a budding friendship going?
Much of the work I do as a coach, is helping people make a new relationship with unknowing. The other week during a coaching session, I was reminded again that moving toward the changes we most want will always require a move into (not out of) unknowing. Changing careers, building a side hustle or business, starting a new role, learning a new skill—you can’t do any of this by skirting the unknown.
Ok friends, here’s to the kind of growing you’re after (and the unknowing needed to find it). And here’s a strange song by the strange Clem Snide and his strange relationship with the unknown.
Quote
Here’s author and entrepreneur Eliot Peper on the utter importance of creating a relationship with the unknown:
"If you know something's going to work, it's not worth working on. It requires no courage. It requires no faith. It requires no skin in the game. Whether you're a spy or a teacher or a spouse or a painter or an abuela or an astronaut or a monk or a barista or a board-game designer, the bits that matter are the bits you make matter by putting yourself on the line for them. The unknown is the foundry where you forge your chips. Everything important is uncertain. Sitting with the discomfort of that uncertainty is the hard part, the wedge that can move the world."
Question
Is the heart of the work that I’m here to do, ultimately about knowledge or love?
Poem
Our Real Work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
—Wendell Berry
Thanks for reading,
Lance Odegard
unstucking.co
Hi there! 👋 My name’s Lance - I’m a writer, coach, and learning designer from Vancouver BC, Canada. In this publication, you’ll find a growing archive of resources for those looking for creativity fuel to keep moving and making. Thanks for stopping by.
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