the benefit of doubt.
I often have a feeling of doubt. I doubt myself. I doubt my skills and knowledge. I doubt my ability to solve problems. Sometimes life just feels too uncertain.
This is why I started to priorizite learning more and more. I learn to beat uncertainty. I learn to get rid of the feeling of doubt.
But be careful. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t have the goal to beat uncertainty and eradicate doubt. I realize it now.
We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. — Feynman
Uncertainty and doubt are necessary for us to learn and grow.
Scientists are incredible learners and they don’t try to get rid of uncertainty and doubt. They figure it out. They try to embrace it. They try to have a healthy amount of it. They know that uncertainty and doubt are the origin to ask questions. Questions that help you to learn something.
Doubt doesn’t have to be loaded with negativity. But actually it is quiet positive.
Try to think of it in this way. You feel doubt or uncertainty because you are not sure. From this, questions start to arise in your mind. Questions that create little spaces in your mind waiting to be answered and filled. Questions that even result in a sense of curiosity.
Once you start to research, learn, and try to answer the question, you will slowly fill the blank gaps in your mind. You will connect the open gaps that are created by questions and doubt to things you already know.
Doubt and questions create gaps in your network of knowledge and understanding. Learning helps you fill and connect those gaps.
In contrast, if you try to learn without doubt and questions, you will place new understanding and information losely in your brain. The new understanding has nowhere to fit into. No gap to close. Nowhere to connect. It just doesn’t have any place in your brain. So it quickly fades away.
Be like a scientist and create spaces for learning in your mind by embracing doubt and uncertainty. Learning requires questions. Questions require doubt. Thus learning requires doubt.
