Sam Radford

April 12, 2022

Too much knowledge

I like Instagram. Mostly. I mainly like that I can keep up-to-date with friends via their photographs. That is, for me, a predominantly positive experience.

Interspersed with all the photos though is an ever growing stream of self-help type content. Tips, advice, guidance, life-lessons, hacks, how-to’s, and more. 

It’s not that all of it is terrible—though some of it really is!—it’s more that the amount of it is overwhelming. There is far more of it than I could ever hope to process or integrate into my life. 

And the danger with that is that I take in a lot of content that gives me a kind of pseudo-wisdom. I know all the right things to say and do. I have all manner of theoretical help to improve my life with. But what’s the point of it? 

I already know far more than I am acting on and applying. Not just from Instagram, of course. Books, podcasts, articles are steadily delivering me more information, knowledge, and insights too.

Knowledge is not wisdom though. And nor is it transformational. My weakness is that I spend more time gathering knowledge than integrating knowledge. It is easy to make gathering the end goal. And then I can look good in front of others based on that ‘achievement’. But I don’t want to be someone who knows the right things to say; I want to be someone who people look at me and see a life well lived

To do that, I need to slow down on the knowledge gathering and focus on integrating, applying, and embodying all that I already know.

What is better: Lots of unapplied knowledge, or a little knowledge thoroughly integrated into life?

—Sam

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👉 @samradford | samradford.com

About Sam Radford

Husband, father, lover of books, writer, tech geek, sports fan, and pragmatic idealist from Sheffield, England.