We as humans are prone to making bad decision occasionally. Even a person who is a stickler for research will not make the optimum section 100% of the time.

That being said, I have learned to live with the fact that to some of my friends, I am great reminder of what not to do in situations where I will make the wrong decision more times than not. And I only decided to come to grips with this reality based on my observation that I have plenty of friends who I hold in this regard, and based on law of averages, someone has to believe the same of me.

The actual logic behind me coming to this conclusion comes from my long-standing maxim that it is okay to hate one or two people on this planet because there is at least one person who truly hates you, whether you earned that hatred or not. The entire thought is much more complicated and ironically humanitarian but easy enough for me to sum it up in this article without hijacking the topic. Guess you’ll have to read a future article on this theory . . .

Today, I am writing on my new stance on ‘stupid questions,’ with actually was something like, ‘there are no stupid questions, just people too stupid to know not to ask their questions.’ Yes, I can be a jerk about things and to people, but I am very patient and tolerant with people who truly do not know that answers or reasoning behind the question that seemed to have obvious answers or sources to find the answers. It’s the people who ask the question that was already (and especially just) answered that really bug me.

I’m working on not allowing those people in those situations to bug me as much. And I have to admit it is a serious struggle, but it is worth all the effort. This comes from my recent research for another project into the Dunning-Kruger Effect for a project. The Dunning-Kruger Effect concludes that, ‘the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.’ Basically, many people who don’t know how bad they are at a task are not smart to know enough about the task to realize they are bad at it. Consequently, people with natural gifted abilities to perform a task will discount their superiority with the belief that working the task must come just as easy to most who try (find more on this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect and search for ‘John Cleese Explaining Stupidity’ and watch the YouTube video of John Cleese explaining stupidity).

So I am coming to terms with a past of misplacing anger on people who did not know what they did not know when they asked me about. That anger should be directed at the people who allowed the do not knows to leave without the knowledge in the first place, but I don’t really have time to hunt them down. So I have to be nicer to the people asking the questions and just stew in the leftover hatred.

A little too passive-aggressive? How about this little parable: Early one Saturday afternoon, a man tells his 10-year-old son to wash the family car. The man thinks it time the boy learned the value of hard work and responsibility. He could save himself the time and effort of doing it himself. He could also save himself the money charged by the car wash, which could be siphoned off to his young son, assuming he did an adequate job.

The boy does as he is asked. He washes the family car. He goes to his father to inform him of a job completed. The man looks at the car and nearly screams in horror. The boy has done as he was asked. He washed the family car.

With steel wool pads. Ruining the paint job. Making the act of washing the car a moot point from this point forward.

Now if I had washed my father’s car with steel wool pads when I was 10-years-old, I butt would still be sore, and I’m almost 40. But that is not what the father in this parable did. He realized the errors of his ways and corrected them immediately. He did not teach the boy the proper way to wash a car with care and precision. So he spent the rest of that Saturday afternoon teaching his son what he should have done to begin with.

I know my inquiries on things I don’t know are bothersome, so I tend to not ask those stupid questions, or preface the question by announcing it will be stupid. But I have a long standing habit of not being kind to those asking me the stupid questions. My reform has started, and while I have a long way to go, I am happy to admit the problem, and suffer the scrutiny of those who are taking up the task of keeping me accountable.

Thank you for taking the time to reading this post. If you think others might enjoy or learn from this post, feel free to click to recommend or to share the link to this post in your social media feeds. Find more of what I’m up to at jclevelandpayne.net.