I Used to Be So Smart

Know-it-all friends. Ever had one? Ever been one?

My husband and I were friends with a couple who always had all the answers no matter the topic. They were like human encyclopedias but with a yellow post-it note on the page with the right answer, the right instructions, like they’d already sifted through all the extraneous material to get to the nub, then they would hand us the nub, glowing on a fresh, clean plate. “Here, here is the answer.”

We resented it for just minutes before we relaxed into their knowing everything. Over time, we became like teenagers learning to drive, are we going to fast, should we slow down, when should we signal, is it okay to pass? It is amazing how incapacitating extreme helpfulness can be. After a while, I felt compelled to rebel. Wait just a goddamned minute here! I know things.

I’ve also done a few tours of duty as a know-it-all myself. Any problem would elicit Jan’s Solutions. Money, career, kids, cars I might hesitate about, food, travel, conflict, oh, I was especially good on conflict. I knew immediately what should be done. Unlike our couple friends, I couldn’t fix furnaces and diagnose septic tank problems, but everything else was in my wheelhouse, as they say. Somehow, something in me read people’s confiding in me as their asking for direction.

And then I just decided to shut the fuck up. I don’t know jack. I know how to do what I do and that’s all I know.

Sometimes I can’t stand it. The solution to a problem is so obvious, a red chicken pecking across the table, peck, peck, peck. You see that chicken? I want to say. Don’t you see the damn chicken pecking right in front of you, peck, peck peck? But I pretend not to notice, my new catechism being if the person wants to see the red chicken, if, in fact, the red chicken exists for that person, then she will see it. Otherwise, it’s just my hen gotten loose from the coop.

I’m not perfect at this, keeping my mouth shut, but I’m working on it. I like it because it gives way to other things – like not judging people and not thinking I’m smarter than everyone else, this latter item being an especially high hurdle for me. I’ve been trying on humility lately, it’s like a sweater from the very back of my closet. It’s plain so I don’t love wearing it but I’m growing into it. And I’m glad I never threw it away.

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Photo by Rita Morais on Unsplash