Why knowing isn't the same as doing
You don't have to live in a hypothetical life
As a systems thinker, I plan a lot of life before I live it. I dive deep into theory and concepts, love a rule, and appreciate a nice set of guidelines. Like any good strategist, I sit down and think through a plan for the variables and things within my control. But when it comes time to apply the experiment… testing for potential outcomes becomes a different story.
This freeze shows up in many places: work, friendships, setting goals—but the place it’s been showing up the most is in my dating life, or rather, my dating expectations.
I know more about how to date than I’ve actually dated.
Every time I open an app, it doesn’t take long to scroll and find a date gone wrong story time on my feed. I’ve heard and, for the most part, heeded the warnings and antidotes of what to look out for from the people around me. I’ve even gone as far as to read thorough, research-backed essays on why things are the way they are. I’ve trusted these sources because even if it wasn’t my experience, it was somebody’s truth. While there is validity in hearing someone else’s story, there’s a difference between collecting information and taking on their outcomes as your own.
That thinking led me to adopt theories about men who matched certain criteria. When I met someone who carried those characteristics, my first instinct was to run. This time, something in me decided to test fire, to see if what other women said was true. In this instance, it wasn’t.
Although it didn’t end in a love story, it did provide a new perspective. It exposed new dealbreakers and shifted the necessity of others. It expanded my understanding of the “why” behind certain actions. Most importantly, it provided me with first-hand data drawn from my own conclusions, not from the peer reviews of others.
Theories are sometimes wrong.
Experience gives us what theory alone can’t: Practice.
The taboo part about practice is that it often reveals the limitations behind our theories. It shows us just how wrong our assumptions were, requiring us to adapt. That’s just how it works. New experiences are supposed to provide you with new information. New information is supposed to change you.
While theory lets you live comfortably in the space between knowing and doing, practice collapses that space entirely. It requires more. It asks you to give yourself permission to be wrong in real time. It asks you to trust yourself, knowing that you don’t know the answers. It asks you to challenge the limits of what you believe to be true. Herminia Ibarra has a quote that actually sums it up perfectly: “We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.”
It’s easier to get caught up in how life should work instead of what really happens when we take an action. A part of healthy growth is to learn more about ourselves, dispel our fears, and, for better or worse, form opinions based on firsthand experiences.
When I reflect on where I was three months ago, I realize that much of what I understood about life was all hypothetical. It was based on ideals, concepts, and rules that I’d adopted because society told me so. The price of living a hypothetical life is never knowing what it truly feels like to live on your own accord. To collect your own lessons. To make your own decisions regardless of public perception.
