Life is full of potentially embarrassing moments, and we have to learn to navigate them without undue distress--but at times our efforts to avoid embarrassment come with a cost. A common scenario in which this occurs is when we realize that we're expected to know something we don't, and we seek to cover up our ignorance.
A question is raised, and we feel obligated to have the answer--but we don't. A topic comes up in discussion, and the other parties are obviously familiar with it--but we're not. Someone greets us, and it appears that we should know their name--but we draw a blank.
It's easy to bluff our way through these situations, but this comes at a cost: When we prioritize our desire to avoid embarrassment, we relinquish the power of not knowing, which comes in several forms:
The Power of Candor
When we don't have an answer that we feel obligated to provide, it can be powerful to respond, "I don't know--I'll find out and get back to you."
The Power of the Naive Question
When we feel left out of a topic that others are conversant with, it can be powerful to ask, "Can you tell me more about that?"
The Power of Apology
When we've forgotten someone's name (or some other detail), it can be powerful to say, "I'm sorry, but I'm blanking on [X]--would you remind me?"
When we yield to our desire to avoid embarrassment and relinquish these powers, we actually increase our fear of embarrassment and the power it holds over us. This is understandable--no one enjoys being embarrassed--and yet it's not inevitable. Embarrassment isn't fatal, and we can empower ourselves to be more emotionally resilient in response.
This doesn't entail suppressing such feelings, but, rather, regulating them and their behavioral manifestations. That process starts with a heightened awareness of our feelings and the ability to label and articulate them: "Oh, that's embarrassing." Saying this to ourselves is a useful start, and when we can say it openly to others we dramatically enhance our ability to down-regulate the emotion and consciously choose how to respond. [1]
Nor am I suggesting that we shouldn't feel embarrassment in the first place--all such emotions are potentially useful data, alerting us to the possibility that we've transgressed an important social norm in some way. But emotions are always "noisy signals," and when we allow them to govern our behavior we shackle ourselves to our highly subjective and predictably error-prone ways of thinking. [2]
All of this is easy to understand and very hard to execute, particularly under stress. It takes practice. But as I've learned repeatedly, embracing my ignorance is the quickest path to wisdom.
Footnotes
For Further Reading
Conscious Competence in Practice
Antonio Damasio on Emotion and Reason
To Stay Focused, Manage Your Emotions
When You Don't Like What You Feel: Experiential avoidance, mindfulness, and meta-emotion in emotion regulation (Horst Mitmansgruber, Thomas Beck, Stefan Höfer, Gerhard Schüßler, Personality and Individual Differences, 2009)
Photo by Dale Cruse.
