Don’t pretend like you have the answer

In the continuing saga of “to be wise is to be sad,” financial blogger Ramit Sethi chimes in:

Have you ever noticed how everyone seems to have “the answer” to the healthcare crisis or the economic meltdown? The problem is, they usually don’t see above their own situations to the larger problems. That’s why any one of our opinions is largely irrelevant.
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Everyone’s got an opinion, usually drawn from their own narrow experiences, not seeing the full picture.

This is why product managers know how difficult it is to ask their users what features they want in a product.

It’s why politicians can’t just tactically respond to what people want, but have to show leadership in what they need.

And so, someone else adds to my argument that it’s okay to not care about things you aren’t an expert at. I don’t have too strong an opinion about these financial bailouts and stimulus packages because it is such a complex situation that I can’t imagine any one person could possibly have a good response that will fix the majority of the problem (which is really the best we can hope for). Considering that not even career economists can’t agree on this, my guess is it’s beyond pretty much all of us.

I write about things like this sometimes in hopes that I might encourage others to also not care about things that are beyond their comprehension and, really, to admit that there are things beyond their comprehension. Try it sometime. It’s kind of nice.