My family has an inside joke about people telling us things we already know.
Our children get visually upset when we even hint at telling them something they already know…
If I’m being honest and transparent my wife and I react the same way…(hmmm, maybe that’s where our kids learned it)
Akin to nails scraping on a chalkboard.
My guess is most people….ahem you…
Experience this same nails-on-chalkboard-tune-the-other-person-out reaction when told something they “already know.”
Maybe it has something to do with survival…
Something like we-only-have-so-much-energy-to-spend…
Thus, why waste our finite energy on something we already know…
I’ll tell you why…
Because a good 80%(this is generous) of the time we are not taking the proper actions on the thing we know…
Or we have forgotten part of the thing “we know”…
Or the person telling us the thing we know is giving us their point of view…
Which is often completely different from ours (which can be enlightening).
Now, brace yourself because I’m going to tell you something you already know…
Knowing a thing and doing a thing are not the same thing.
Further, doing a thing and doing a thing RIGHT are not the same thing.
Lastly, doing a thing right and doing the RIGHT are not the same thing.
Let’s wrap it up and put a bow on it…
– Knowing is not doing
– Learning from others, things you already know can be useful
– You can do things right or you can do the right things (preferably both!)