To be a fool is to appear intellectually inferior to others and make bad judgments, to the extent people around you cringe. However, some people are quick to judge who the fools are among them. They call those taking risks foolish until their gamble pays off. Suddenly they go from being foolish to being geniuses.

Honor is important. Having self-respect and wanting others to respect you is a very natural desire. And so the biggest risk you can take is to put your honor on the line. There are so many people out there who are afraid to take risks. Afraid they would be considered foolish. But that’s how you grow.

It is boring being the smartest in the room. There is a sense of peace of mind, not taking yourself so seriously, not being afraid of being hilariously wrong. The day you stop what people think of you is the day you start learning about the world around you.

They say you either win, or you learn. Learning from failure helps you grow, so why not speed up the process and fail repeatedly? The quicker you figure out all the wrong answers, the quicker you know which ones are correct. And consequently, the quicker you grow. [1]

There’s a quote attributed to Confucius. I’m not good with history and I certainly can’t translate Chinese to English, so I don’t know how accurate it is, but the quote is something like “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

Sometimes you can be in a class and raise a hand to ask a question. You can feel time stopping and the entire universe looking in your direction listening carefully to your question, whose answer should be “obvious” and something you “should’ve known.” You might sense people laughing at you. Making fun of you for clarifying a doubt. It can be intimidating. But who cares?

It does not matter what others think. With enough apathy towards their opinions, one might just become completely ignorant about them. That ignorance is powerful and allows you to do things that a person afraid to harm his reputation could never think of doing. [2]

Having the courage to fail and be mocked leads to growth. When you grow, you find yourself better prepared for life. All those afraid to ask questions, all those who might have laughed at you, will naturally be left behind. Time is the greatest filter. With enough consistency and curiosity, you outperform others, and they can never see it coming. To them, you’re just a guy that asks foolish questions and makes a lot of mistakes.

 

Notes

[1] Failure is not the only factor for growth, you also need humility, which is why I stress so much about not being afraid of mockery. Failure can often end in embarrassment, but when you are not afraid of mockery, you can quickly recover and learn from what you did wrong, as opposed to those who get their ego hurt and refrain from trying new things again.

[2] What I meant here was being ignorant to the idea that you were being “foolish”. From your perspective, you’re just asking an innocent question, not knowing others are mocking you for it. It is also how most end up taking big risks in their career, ignorant about the challenges it causes them. If they overcome those challenges, they are pushed to the top of the ladder in their field. But, if they would’ve been aware of the challenges beforehand, they might’ve not even started.

Thanks to Ali El Shennawy for suggestions and for reading drafts of this.