"The Tightrope Walker"

"The Tightrope Walker" by Jean-Louis Forain

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Ignorance is bliss, or is it?

Have you ever heard the expression, "You don't know what you don't know?"  The thinking is that if you are lacking knowledge or experience with something you might not even know that you are missing it in the first place.  For example, when a child learns about long division it is brand new.  They often don't even know that such a thing exists until someone shows it to them.  I always think of "you don't know what you don't know" as being on a larger scale, more like life experience, travel, cultural exploration and so on.

As adults, I think, many of us don't have very many moments where we realize we are learning or experiencing something new for the first time.  Even as new parents we usually have seen others parent or use our experiences with our own parents as reference.  Today I realized that I might be in a place where I just don't know what the alternative would be like or feel like.  And, I find myself feeling surprised.

So, the big question - do I really enjoy life?  I don't mean do I enjoy my life.  I mean do I live my life to the full potential and experience all that I can.  The answer is, I don't know because I don't know if the things I'm not doing would be more enjoyable.  I'm back at trying to eat right, exercise, find time for me and take better care of myself.  Part of eating better is planning my meals better.  Tonight while JD bathed the girls I spent about an hour prep, measuring and cooking food for my lunches this week.  Usually this time would be my "quiet" time which is really code for watching TV, checking email and generally doing nothing.  After the hour of prepping I felt frustrated that I had missed out on some quiet me time.  Then the thought struck:  I still had a quiet hour by myself and I could have listened to music or watched TV to make the hour more enjoyable WHILE  prepping meals.  DUH!  I know, so stupid right?  This got me thinking about the things that I don't do and just assume are not enjoyable because I just KNOW if they are.  While I'm sitting on couch "enjoying" a movie is someone else walking or biking or knitting or swimming and having a more enjoyable experience than me?  What if they are, does is matter?  Or more importantly, what if I'm missing out on life (because I'm comfortable living in a state of inaction) and don't even know it?  Hmmmm....now the wheels are turning!

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