Much Ado About Ignorance

I Know Nothing - Socrates
"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing" by Socrates.

Socrates was a very wise man indeed, for he knew very early on that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. This is a contradiction of sorts because how can you know that you know nothing when you must know something to know that, right? :-) Seriously though, this world is so vast and full of so much information that what each of us does know is so insignificant. Yet, when combined together, that knowledge can be used to achieve so much.

The above paragraphs are taken from http://morethanwords.blogspot.com written by my fellow blogger, Thanh, from Australia. Thanh's article reminded me of an incident which took place when I first came to Singapore.

I advertised to tutor some students and a family in Siglap responded. I had a tough time finding their house. I asked a passer by and he directed me, making me walk for almost 30 minutes towards the wrong direction!! In all I wasted one whole hour, just because someone pretended to know when he actually did not know!!! What a sharp contrast to Socrates!!

On another occasion a client wanted to view a condominium I advertised near Orchard Road. I told her I would show her the following day, as I only had one hour to catch my breath as I had meetings after meetings to attend. She insisted she must view at 4.30p.m. as she was going to Indonesia. I told her it would be pointless because by the time she came back, my client's property would have been sold. She proudly told me that as she was the sole decision maker, being a single mother, she could make an offer on the spot!! Hence, I decided to sacrifice my only break of 60 minutes and rushed down to show her the unit. She did not make the offer and though she had no husband to consult with, she had 100 friends to seek advice from!!! One of the friends was a so called, wise and experienced investor who advised her not to buy as the property was overpriced at $2.26 million!!! Three days after she came back from Indonesia she was relieved that my client's property was still available and this time, she increased her offer to $2.2 million. I told her my client would not accept anything less than $2.26 million. She went to Melbourne for a week, and when she came back, she was upset that my client's property was sold at $2.28 million. She chided me for not waiting for her! I told her she did not believe my words and advice, but chose to believe her so called smart investor friend. Investors, no matter how smart or experienced, cannot feel the same intensity of the pulse of the market as veteran agents do!! Just after my client sold the unit at $2.28 million, another unit of the same size and same condominium, was offered $2.4 million.!!!

Though I am a property agent for the past 12 years, I feel I still have so much more to learn. Though I specialise in English and Literature at the University of Alberta, I feel I still have so much more to learn. This is why I recently joined our company's toastmasters' club so that I can improve more in my English and Public Speaking.

When Armstrong was on the moon, he looked at earth, and he realised how small the world really is!!! He was suddenly overwhelmed with the realisation of how little we human beings know, and yet we are so proud, petty and bloated with a false sense of as if we were immortal!!! The line between life and death is so thin, just as the line between knowledge and ignorance is so thin. We either know or don't know, and when we don't know, it is more sane and more human to admit we don't know! :-)

Gan Chau