I Am Not an Expert

So I told you that last week I had this great spiritual post written up, but then I got the first of the negative comments from the reviewers of Turtle Heart, and that took all smug feelings of wisdom right out the window.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve gotten lots of positive comments and support for Turtle Heart, as well as some insightful suggestions on how to improve it. Even so, realizing that my work of art is NOT perfect, and never will be, has done something to me.

I’m not an expert anymore.

That spiritual post which I am not planning to post? I still believe in it, but I don’t feel up to telling anyone else about it. Maybe some other time, if I can figure out a way to write it that doesn’t make me sound so stolidly sure of myself.

“Scientists did a study and figured out that people who think they are experts are more closed-minded,” I told my friend Abbey last night, and we both laughed at the absurdity of some scientists somewhere scratching out estimates and adding up numbers and finally figuring out what most of us already know by dint of common sense.

But that study on expertism made me think. I wonder how many times I believe myself to be an expert in something and close my mind to possibility. Am I so sure of my knowledge of the Bible that I fail to understand what others could teach me? So positive in the correctness of my lifestyle that I close my ears to what God is trying to tell me?

I immediately thought of the Bible because that is my area of “expertise,” but you can apply the expert test to anything, any interest, large or small. If you believe yourself an expert in something, think again. Remember that if you already know everything, you can’t learn anything.

On an inconsequential side note, I went horse-back riding this weekend. I am NOT an expert, but I had fun. The inconsequential things in life really are the most important.