You don’t know what you don’t know until you have personal experience with any subject. Consider head knowledge vs. heart knowledge—book knowledge vs. personal experience. You may even be well trained in a particular subject, but all the book-learning did was to give you background knowledge until you face the situation head-on.
We’ve faced the pandemic for over 14 months. At least in my neck of the woods. Scientist. Government. Medical personnel. Front-line responders. People with knowledge, training, and even a “voter-given responsibility” to someone else. They get to make decisions for us on how we must live in this new phase of life.
For the rest of us? Any time you come face to face with the C-19, you only know what you’ve learned from training, someone else’s experience, hysteria reporting, and your own personal slant of the disease. From the sidelines, we really know nothing: news, social media, hearsay, and the constantly changing voice and message challenge us on every front.
That’s all we really know until we deal with it in real-time. Personal experience.
What’s Truth? What’s Fiction?
How do you answer the question: What’s true? What’s fiction? We don’t really have a clue.
This is probably true when relating to any subject. Since I’ve not dealt with any particular -ism in the current news cycle, how can I know my response? Reaction? Outcome? Am I competent to judge how you should respond? React? Or what must your outcome be? A jury of my peers is hard to find because we all come to reality from a different perspective. We are ignorant of the law, science, or governing needs – except for what we learned in book knowledge experiences. Our experience? Mostly non-existence. Until we face it personally.
It’s the middle of the night. Pandemic reality has come to roost in a new way. Through the past 14 months, I’ve lost friends and family to the pandemic. Some succumbed to the virus; others, the weight of what we are dealing with was too much. Withdrawal. Run-aways. Ignore reality. Make a new reality that has nothing to do with facts. Get angry. Frustrated. Draw a line in the proverbial sand and defy anything to step across. We’ve dealt with isolation till we are sick of it. Shortages. Career stalls. Student isolation. We are Zoomed to death!
It’s time to face reality like you’ve not had to deal with it up to this point.
Remember. You don’t know what you don’t know, until you face it head-on in a real moment.
What Do You Do?
Jesus warned in a parable about the perils of the blind leading the blind. What happens? They both fall in the ditch! (Matthew 15:14, Luke 6:39) When you have no clue about moving through a crisis, do you become Chicken Little? The ostrich? Or do you throw in the towel? Shout your message and hope the power of voice will convince everyone?
Experts are in general agreement, but there’s always going to be debate about the best way to move forward. The voice with decades of experience may be sound advice, but since we’ve not been here in our lifetime, who’s to say anyone has a handle on reality?
Again, this applies to any reality we find in the news cycle.
Reality Shows
Reality Shows may be the rave of the new entertainment option. Producers generally show us the worst reaction ever! Hot temperaments. Melt-downs! Tears. Tantrums. Remorse. Losers walking off the stage. Dismissed. Fired. From housewives to bachelors (-ettes), survivors to travelers seem the non-scripted shows are making inroads with higher audience appeals.
Treat cooking as a reality show. Does the dish turn out right every time? Let the editors and scriptwriters have control, then picture-perfect results abound. But try it at home? Too much of this. Not enough of that. Temperature controls the results as well as the clock itself. Miss one little thing, and it’s back to the drawing board!
Take that scenario to the vaccine. What’s the standard measurement to ensure every dose is perfect? Can something be wrong in the kitchen? Or even with a personality having a bad hair day? Sure. Along the path to our arms, we hope everything was perfect. Just this morning, the vaccine I took over 4 weeks ago is being held up due to some adverse effects. Eight cases. Two deaths. Acceptable? Probably. Maybe? I don’t know!
You don’t know what you don’t know until you face it in real-time.
Then? You hope and pray everything was perfect in the supply chain leading to your inoculation. Wait! What about trusting your body to respond properly? Are you perfectly healthy? Is there a hidden condition that will react strangely?
Where To From Here?
If we’ve learned anything during my 66 years, it can probably be summed up with words of warning. Even words of hope. Encouragement. We’re in this together. We can do this! Let’s Roll!
President John F. Kennedy made a speech at Rice University Stadium in Houston, Texas. I would have been only 7 years old. We know his famous words, but I recently learned that he spake them, not 30 miles from where NASA (Johnson Space Center) finds its home. At this time, we lived in Seabrook at what is now Taylor Lake Village Community Park. Back then, it was Champion Paper Company Employee Park. How far from NASA did we live? It’s just 2.3 miles away. My home during these opening years of planning the trip to the moon was just a hop, skip, and a jump away.
“We choose to go to the Moon,” Kennedy said. “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” September 12, 1962
Consider the times. What was in the news, and what were we dealing with then that must still be dealt with today. Have we come far? Perhaps. Are there still miles to go? Definitely.
Here’s My Thought Today
Since JFK’s famous words, our population has more than doubled. 3.1 billion back then. 7.9 billion today.
Do we know more today than we did back then? Definitely, but many of the same problems exist. Racism. Inequalities on many fronts. Wars. Lack. Poverty. The have’s and the have-nots. This could be a lengthy list!
Back then, we were dealing with the aftermath of polio. I remember lines at the local health office or town square where we took our vaccinations via sugar cubes—little white party cups with a vaccine-laced sugar cube. Enjoy the sweetness, but the medicine may protect you.
Today? It’s a single or double dose of vaccine given in long lines of cars entering drive-through dispensations arenas. Attempting to stem the tide of a rising and potentially deadly virus that wreaks havoc throughout the world, we are faced with the idea.
We don’t know what we don’t even know to ask about! Much less believe everything “they” say about it.
The one thing I think is important: Take personal responsibility for protecting your world. The consequences of your actions, even if you think you’re protecting yourself with the best knowledge available, will still be…
We don’t know what we don’t know until we face the challenge personally!
You Don't Know What You Don't Know Until It Gets Personal, or until you face the challenge personally. Only then will you have a handle on which questions are most important! Click To Tweet