All day long I work with patients who want answers and certainty. My awareness of how few questions have proven answers, and how unpredictable human health and disease can be, is a heavy burden.  This discordance may be why I enjoyed Stuart Firestein’s excellent book, Ignorance,  so much. He makes an excellent case for the value of ignorance.

Alone we go faster, but together we go further. Alone things are simpler, but together things are better. Alone we control the process and perhaps the product, but it is together that we learn and grow. 

Let’s work together.

It’s impossible to learn from one’s mistakes while busy denying or hiding them.

It’s easy to take people for granted. 

Darwin observed: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” This profound observation is poorly understood and usually ignored by institutions and organizations.

Close calls and near misses are common terms for bad things that almost - but didn’t - happen. 

“Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.”

(Nietzsche) 

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."

John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

If not, it doesn't mean you are smart.  Remember...

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."

John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

Which approach seems right to you? How do you maintain a balance?