The fear of stupidity

I love Seth Godin’s writing. I especially love his little essay on stupidity. Now, if you’re like most of us, stupid is the last thing we want to feel. Yet the truth is, whenever we are in the process of learning something new, or trying to tackle a difficult problem, we feel stupid.

Often, this is enough to send us scurrying back to our cave because we associate feeling stupid with fear. We can’t bear feeling stupid. And yet, doesn’t change make us all feel stupid?

Things are different, the old rules don’t apply. We haven’t figured out the new ones yet.

So… all to often we avoid change, so we don’t feel stupid and therefore afraid.

Believe me, I know this cycle.  

So I’m going to follow Godin’s advice. Instead of avoiding change and avoiding freedom to avoid feeling stupid and afraid, I’m just going to embrace stupid.  It means I am learning, I am trying something different, I am willing to feel the discomfort of stretching, I am growing.