What We Don't Know

What We Don't Know

Well, today is my birthday, and so I decided to start writing articles here.

Since I was very young, I have always been a guy who studied a lot, more for the pleasure of learning new things than for anything else. And many times I didn't know what to do with that information, but it always served as curiosity in conversations with other people.

I remember once a colleague said I was the guy who knew the most things that were useless, but I always took it as a joke. But after some time I realized that applying what you learn, in practice, is what makes you go further and learn even more.

And this is closely related to how I returned to the market, working as a developer. I always studied, did small projects, but after a health problem and spending some time away, I was afraid to come back, I always thought I wasn't prepared.

However, I decided to lose the fear and started applying for some positions and finally ended up returning to work in my field. To my surprise, although I hadn't lost the fear, I realized that there are several people with different levels of knowledge and practice, and with that I realized that it's okay if you don't know everything, after all, nobody knows everything.

And after I realized that, I ended up evolving faster, in a way. Technical knowledge is essential, but interpersonal skills have a proportional weight.

And it's interesting that much of all this you learn in life. I saw in a speech by Steve Jobs, once, where he talked about connecting the dots, and life really is that, your personal and professional evolution is a big game of connecting the dots, and one day everything that seemed useless might not be.

And when I talk about what we don't know, I bring a recent experience, returning to my birthday, I bought myself some books as a gift, to improve, study and be able to bring some content. And when I picked up one of the books I bought to read, I realized that I already used, understood the concepts and practiced that almost daily, and hence the reflection, many times we think we know little or almost nothing, and it's even more interesting when we realize that even with this certainty: that we know very little, yet we know much more than we imagine.

Anyway, don't be afraid, take risks, assume you don't know much and chase after it to learn. But remember, there is still much more to be learned and you already know much more than you imagine. The secret is to go after what we don’t yet know.