You may be very surprised about what you already know.: Eschew Obfuscation

There is a guild mentality that surrounds certain subjects and keeps interested parties at arms length in order to protect vested interests and the status quo. You can’t participate in the club without knowing the lingo.

Business terminology can seem like that. But you already run a pretty complicated business called your life.

It is good to take a moment to take stock of what you already know, and have experience in, when looking at a new subject with intimidating buzzwords like business, finance, accounting, marketing, and strategy.

You may be very surprised about what you already know.

It reminds me of the fellow who wanted to be wise. He embarked on a project of travel and study only to realize when he fell ill with cancer that he was already wise. He just didn’t understand the language of his wisdom until then.

That guy’s name is Mark Nepo and he is one of the very wisest people I know. I read from his Book of Awakening each day for a few minutes before meditating to pitch me into the right state of receptiveness.

This state of realization also reminds me of the character, Mr. Jourdain, from the Moliere play, The Bourgeois Gentleman. Monsieur Jourdain has upwardly mobile aspirations and is so pleased to realize that he has been speaking prose his whole life without knowing it.

It comes as a surprising revelation to him and he is delighted, “My faith! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose while knowing nothing of it, and I am the most obliged person in the world to you for telling me so.”

Moliere is making fun of someone who has pretense of being an aristocrat but the situation is revealing.

Sometimes the language used obscures from us our own hard earned knowledge.

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