Knowledge is Power... Sometimes.

Knowledge is power and I say sometimes, because not everybody wants to know what you know. You invest a lot of time in getting an education, so, you can stand out from the crowd, but sometimes, it is alright to stay in the crowd.

What is the first thing people who go to college do? Most of them immediately, including myself when I started working on my bachelor’s degree, will show how smart they are in front of others, even if they have never met them before. I am reminded of an episode of Seinfeld where George becomes smart and he throws something into the conversation and Jerry remarks, how long have you been saving that for a conversation piece? It is great to have knowledge, but you also must find a balance and know when to use it.

I have this stupid ideology that I can connect with anyone, whether you are in America or another country because my education allows me to understand world cultures, but I also get blocked on social media every week by someone new I try to interact with. Mainly because they feel inferior to me and just saying that alone, somebody reading this is probably looking for their block button on Vocal Media and ready to block me because I think they are going to feel inferior to me. I do not know if Vocal Media even has a block button.

I have a really hard time listening to people in a conversation, especially, when they are talking about things they really do understand, a recent example, would be the presidential elections and if you do not understand what you are doing when you vote. I strongly believe you should not be voting at all and I would rather they did not vote. I had someone ask me last week about past presidents and they did not have a good understanding of history and it kept leading to a question after question and finally. I had to ask; how far back do you want to go? It is great to have a wide knowledge of information on many things, but you must know when to stop yourself.

I said a wide knowledge of information? I meant myself, because if you ask me what I think about the new Xbox. I am going to look at you and ask, what about it? I know nothing about the Xbox or sports. I was in Colorado and I would hear the name Peyton Manning and finally I had to ask someone, who is Peyton Manning? Although. I had no idea who he was I did not feel inferior to the person who knew who he was.

If you are in a complex business meeting, than you want to show all of your knowledge, but if you are in a café in Pennsylvania and someone starts to talk about how their economy has changed in that state and they are just talking casually, than do not jump to, well that’s because when the steel mills started closing in the early 80’s which were strong under Andrew Carnegie. Pennsylvania had no other economic growth, and the Hershey plants GDP was hitting a low during that time, so the state had a higher deficit the following year and state unemployment rose and Pennsylvania still struggles in the 21st century economically. You do need anyone else in that conversation to tell you that you just jumped 1000 steps left.

I feel like I try to understand everybody, but I do not feel everybody tries to understand me. I can talk at any level, but not everybody can talk at my level and that is alright, but if I try to bring it down a level, people feel inferior, that is never my intent and I will never apologize for doing what I mean and saying what I feel.

You try to stay in the crowd and understand everyone’s point, while talking at their level, but sometimes that crowd is still not comfortable with you, which is another thing I hear every week from someone. My crowd is small, and I need other people in it and when others would rather you stay out of the crowd, it hurts. Knowledge is power, sometimes.