information | The Caleb Barney Collection

New information is an invitation to question old opinions

It’s ok to have an opinion on something even if you’re not an expert in that field. But to keep that opinion (whether it be informed or uninformed) may not be logical once new information comes to light.

You should focus on having the right answer, even if that means you were wrong before. Strive to be right as often as possible, but don’t stick with your original opinion that you know is wrong just so you don’t have to say you were wrong before. Everyone is wrong about many things over the course of their lifetimes. But the ones who are generally viewed as the smartest and most successful are the ones who are able to admit when they’re wrong and to move forward when they are presented with more recent information.

On disagreements

Speak your mind. Don’t be afraid to disagree, but know the difference between healthy disagreement/debate and an argument. Don’t call people names or lose your temper when debating. And as you’re stating your opinion, keep one thing in mind – you’re not that smart.

You won’t always be right and you shouldn’t always have an answer to everything. It’s ok to say, “I don’t know.”

Do not cling to an opinion and be afraid to change it – keep an open mind. If you gain more information on a subject, whether by collecting it yourself or being told new info from someone else, it should either be adding to your argument or breaking it down. Either way, the balance should be shifting one way or the other.

The answer isn’t having more information, it’s acting on the information we “know to be true”

It doesn’t matter how much information you acquire if you don’t use it. “We would all be rockstar millionaires with six-pack abs” if information was the answer to all of our problems (paraphrased from Derek Sievers).

We all kind of know what we should be doing financially, physically, mentally, etc, but what are we doing with that information? How are we putting it into practice? Many of us know we should save and invest, but instead we indulge. We know we should eat clean, drink plenty of water, and exercise daily, but instead we eat too much fried food, drink too much alcohol, and skip our workouts. We know we should continue to read and expand our mind, but instead we waste time on social media or binge watching tv.

We all have an idea of what we should be doing. More information isn’t the answer – acting on the information we know to be true is.

Where is the knowledge?

“Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?” – T.S. Elliot

We are so inundated with information, most of which is irrelevant, that we lose the part that is actually important – the applicable knowledge.

Don’t confuse the two. Start/continue to listen to audiobooks and podcasts, to read articles and books, and to try to learn as much as possible, but make sure you occasionally take a step back and figure out if you’re just consuming noise (information), or if what you’re letting in will help you. Then apply what you’ve learned. The best teacher is experience. You can read as much as you want, but you need to actually start “doing” to gain a complete knowledge of a subject.