Ask HN: How to not feel guilty or ashamed about not knowing something? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to not feel guilty or ashamed about not knowing something?

9 pointsthrowaway89203411 comments

My career has taken a non-linear route to development. I didn't go to college and I barely graduated high school due to familial environmental factors. Regardless, I got a low salary job working for FANG and worked my way up into a developer position. It took a lot of studying Algebra, which I had previously flunked, and Python with a dribble of CS.

I'm still pushing myself to learn every day, but I constantly feel inundated by things I don't know and intimidated by people with amazing technical backgrounds. Others seem fine not knowing something, but for me it eats at my self-esteem, making it harder to be confident at work and difficult to enjoy the learning process.

How do you handle not knowing and cope with the impossibility of knowing everything?

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The key is in what you said -- recognizing that it's impossible to know everything. This is true for me, you, and everyone else.

What this means is that it makes no sense to feel guilty or ashamed about it, since it's not only an inescapable situation, it's the same situation that literally everyone is in.

What should cause shame and embarrassment is acting like (or believing that) you know something when you don't!

I'm a big believer in two things related to this:

1) Kettering's Principle of Intelligent Ignorance. The most important thing to know is what the limit of your knowledge is. We are all ignorant of more things that we have knowledge about, after all, and knowing what you're ignorant of helps keep you out of traps and enhances your credibility.

In other words, intelligent people recognize their ignorance. Unintelligent people are blind to their ignorance.

2) Discovering that you're wrong about something is a moment to be celebrated, not ashamed of. Being corrected means that I've just become a little less stupid. That's a great thing! As a corollary, acknowledging to others that you've been wrong enhances your credibility to others. It does not reduce it.

Professionally, the important thing is that you have a overview-level knowledge of most things, and an in-depth knowledge of the things that are important to your position (and positions that you're aiming to achieve). That's a much lighter lift than trying to be competent in everything.

Very well put.

I would add, once something is explained to you, then you must know it. Nothing is worse than explaining the same thing 5 times. I find writing it when told is of value as it helps to enforce it.

That's an excellent observation.

This is going a bit afield, but I developed a general workplace habit a long time ago that also covers this... whenever I have any important verbal work-related discussions, including when someone teaches me something, I write an email to them restating my understanding of what was said.

I've found this valuable because it can happen that I've misunderstood what was said and this can serve as a sort of error-check against that. It also serves as notes for future reference and, as you say, helps to cement it in my mind.

I think rather than focus on your problem of not knowing, I would suggest you take stock of what you do know and find value in that. You mentioned that you started out at the bottom and have worked your way up, maybe it's time to pay forward the opportunity that was given to you. Find someone that is just starting out and give them a boost, maybe help them understand something they are struggling with.

IMHO Nothing will make you feel better, and also reinforce your understanding than helping someone else learn something you know. I would also look to someone higher up than yourself and reach out for help in learning something your having trouble with, most people will go the extra mile to share their knowledge for the reason I gave above.

I am the same situation as you, when working in a professional environment and with colleagues who are more qualified than me in terms of qualifications and knowledge, but that makes me constantly study and supplement knowledge and skills. to be able to follow them. and now I am managing a website of my company, glad that my effort paid off, and I believe you too, please visit my website, welcome you https://muabanthuoctay.com/

> working in a professional environment and with colleagues who are more qualified than me in terms of qualifications and knowledge, but that makes me constantly study and supplement knowledge and skills.

Yes, this is important. I learned a couple of decades ago that I am happiest when I'm working with people who are a bit more skilled and knowledgeable than I am. Not too much -- that's hard on my ego -- but some. Working with such people means that I have to stretch myself and gives me an expanded pool of people I can learn from, so it makes me a better dev.

It took me until I was 50+ to not feel guilty about not knowing something. Before that, my answer was not "I don't know", but "let me get back to you". I would then find out and get back to them.

What changed? I think the team got bigger, I got more responsibility, and I just got tired. I'm not the only one who can answer the question. There are other people who know (most) areas better than me, and they can answer the question. And I don't have the energy to be the guy who digs up all the answers. I've got other things I need to do with my time.

You're overstating the advantage of "knowing everything." Instead realize that there is an advantage to _wanting_ to learn, attempting, and improving.

Answer honestly, ask for help, and learn.

You are always going to find people who know something you don’t, but the core discipline to learn and progress you have more than proven. Knowing more stuff is just like a cache in a way. You can do any one your peers can do if you learn that thing. But no one can learn everything! Hence teams exist with different skill sets. You’ve done amazingly well to get this far. It’s ok to keep going up, it’s ok to cruise for a while too. Good luck!

This covers so much more things than you actual question, but let me try.

You must realize that self confidence is not about thinking you are the best on what you do, but making sure that you are trying to do your best at every opportunity that you are given.

Once you assimilate that, you will understand that asking for help is sometimes the best way to do your best. And you will grow as a person with that.

Would love to talk to you further. Our stories are very similar.

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