It is a running joke between my husband and me, that I am incapable of answering “I don’t know” to any question posed to me. Even if I clearly do NOT know, I will guess, or make up a theory, or at least try to come up with an answer. It irritates him (and likely other people who don’t love me enough to say that I am irritating them) because sometimes people ask a question simply so they can tell you the answer. Or maybe to move along a story, or to clarify a point. But, in my adult time on this earth, I have learned that people rarely want to wait around for you to sit and think and dig around in the root of the words to see if you can figure the puzzle out witout their help.
If you’re wondering why I’m like this, here’s the reason. Every time we got into trouble as kids, Mom would say: “WHY did you do that?” and we would (predictably) say: “I don’t know” and then she would say “That is not an acceptable answer”. In essence she was forcing us to examine what drove us to an act of definace, disobedience or downright idiocy. It was a good lesson. Falling back on apathy or disinterest is not something that was allowed in our family and is rarely tolerated if you want to succeed in life anyway.
So my annoying habit actually has roots in a good lession. Here’s why I think saying “I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer:
Sometimes it’s the path of least resistance. This makes it easy to shrug off things that are hard or not fun or less than our “passion”.
If not followed up with a desire to FIGURE IT OUT, it’s just apathetic. It indicates a lack of desire to learn.
It keeps you from having to examine your issues. Why don’t you know?
Here’s why I think “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer:
It can indicate humility.
It’s honest. Sometimes you really don’t know.
It can be a catalyst to have someone wiser explain it to you.
It flies in the face of the expert/guru/genius flu that’s been going around lately.
What do you say when someone asks you a question? Do you try to figure it out? Do you let them explain it? Do you say “I don’t know”?
So funny and so true. I can remember sitting in my room, “thinking about what I did”, per my mother’s instructions coming on the heels of my “I don’t know” response. I have often been accused of being a “know it all” as I can often come up with a hypothesis (clipped from dictionary.com; a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.)
Maren, I think you’re on something here (oops I meant on to something…heh heh.) Seriously…we’ve been trained to hypothesize.
Though.. for the record, after earning a fair amount of grey hair, I’ve developed the ability to say; “I don’t know.”
Thanks for the entertaining post.
Often the problem is the question, not a lack of answer. But here are some of my favourite replies to questions I don’t know the answer to.
1. Here?! Now?!
2. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
3. Not sure anyone can answer that.
4. Let’s try and figure it out together.
5. I think this one you should Google.
6. You should really ask X, he/she/they’ll know.
7. I could theorise if you’re interested, but I’m not sure that’s what we’re looking for.
And so on.
But most of all: “You know what? I have no idea!” because I always feel there’s something quite wonderful and exciting in the knowledge of not knowing.
I say *I don’t know* when I begin a long answer that tells you exactly how much I *do* know.
Lots of women do this to downplay their intelligence and assertiveness, and I hate that aspect of my personality.
I do know.
Let me tell you all about it.
HA HA – Laurie, I do the same thing…
I hate saying I don’t know if it is something I SHOULD know – like what I want for dinner or where I want to go out to or something otherwise stupid that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things…
HOWEVER…when I am in the company of brilliance (it happens a few times a year – Gerry Crispin) I do say I don’t know and mean it, because I want to genuinely learn so the next time someone asks me – I can pretend like I knew all along
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That was perfect! I am going to send this to Tena’s girls…both always say..” I don’t know”. It drives me nuts! Good job Maren.