An aluminum pot doesn’t appear different whether extremely hot or cold. If you didn’t know it was hot and grabbed it, ignorance wouldn’t be “bliss” for you. It’d be more like “blisters”! Yes, I’ve been on a roll with corny dad jokes lately. What you gon’ do about it? :-p
I first heard the saying, “ignorance is bliss” as a child. I believe an adult must have dropped it as a form of “wise counsel.” I’ve since found that to be incorrect. Ignorance couldn’t possibly be bliss when knowledge is the foundational requirement of success in any endeavor. And I mean success, in this case, as the actualization of an expected outcome.
“Ignorance is bliss” is usually followed by, “what you don’t know won’t kill you.” The implicit suggestion is that your lack of knowledge causes the truth to stop existing. It’d almost be like “unintentionally” swallowing cyanide. The outcome would be death, and probably not a blissful death at that.
Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. Proverbs 8:12 says, “I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion.” So it appears that wisdom is activated by knowledge. And we could define knowledge as “relevant information”. Therefore, we’re not “wise” if we don’t have the relevant information needed in an area of life.
We’ve always been told that “knowledge is power.” This suggests that the more you “know”, then the more powerful you are. This would be true to the extent that we act on the knowledge we have. So, if ignorance is not bliss, and knowledge is not power, then what’s the deal, you ask?
Here’s the conclusion: since only the knowledge we act on will help, then “informed action” is power. We have to amass the knowledge, and then hold ourselves accountable to act based on what we know. This, I believe, holds the key to a truly blissful life.
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Ugo is an energetic and dynamic youth leader, and also the president of the nonprofit, NEU Gen Leaders. He is the author of 2 books – Secrets of Academic Excellence and The NEU Era. He can be reached at [email protected].