Self-Awareness: The Most Underrated Skill | Tao Te Ching Chapter 71 Explained

Knowing you don't know is wholeness. Thinking you know is a disease. Only by recognizing you have an illness can you move to seek a cure. The master is whole because she sees her illnesses and treats them, and thus is able to remain whole. We live in a world where knowledge is power, or at least it's supposed to be. But there is one kind of knowledge that is so important that without it, our other knowledge becomes a detriment more than an asset. This knowledge is called self-awareness. You see, it's not important just to know what we know, but to know what we don't know. Now, if you don't mind me diverging a bit, there's an analogy from trading that helps explain why this is the case. There's this pervasive myth that goes around that traders can make money because they are somehow able to know what the stock or commodities markets are going to do. This is false. No trader ever knows what the market is going to do. In fact, many of the things that can happen to traders happen as a result of the trader thinking they know what will happen. When a trader thinks they know what is going to happen at any particular moment in the market, they make bets they otherwise wouldn't, they fail to protect themselves from excess losses, and in general just neglect to give the uncertainty of the market the respect it deserves. A good trader knows very well that he or she does not know what is going to happen in the market. Because they recognize that anything can happen, they treat the market like what it is, an environment of probabilistic but uncertain outcomes. Traders can make money in the markets because they are aware of certain patterns that occur in the fluctuation of the prices of stocks or commodities. These patterns are sometimes called edges. Good traders are good traders not because their edges can predict the market with impunity, but because the traders are able to put on disciplined trades based on their edges, which gives them a slightly higher chance of success. Casinos make money in a similar way. In any game of blackjack for example, the outcome of the specific game is uncertain. A casino does not know whether it will win or lose any single game of blackjack. However, they do know that because of how the game works, they have a slightly higher chance of winning. In blackjack, the player has about a 42% chance of winning, while the casino has about a 49% chance of winning. The odds of a tie happening make up the last 8 or 9%. Therefore, it would be silly of a casino to claim that they knew the outcomes of any one game of blackjack. However, they do know that they can count on winning about 7% more of the games than they lose, and that over the course of many games, this 7% can produce a reliable profit. This is also the game that traders play. A good trader never assumes that they can predict the outcome of any single event with certainty. Attempting to do so leads to recklessness and ruin. Instead, they opt to play the long game, knowing that while they can't predict the outcome of any single trade, their edge gives them a slight probabilistic advantage that plays out over the course of many trades, and which over time can produce a profit. The irony of the thing is that by embracing the uncertainty of the market, they are able to have a degree of certainty in their long-term outcomes. Knowing what they don't know is one of the main skills that allows them to make money. Learning to think in probabilities instead of uncertainties is an essential skill for a trader, and frankly, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated skills in life. Knowing what you don't know is not just a skill for traders. Knowing what you don't know helps us to steer clear of classic and catastrophic human pitfalls, such as hubris and arrogance. It also allows us to be aware of problems in our lives that need our attention. Often, we don't like to be aware of our shortcomings, because being aware of our weakness is uncomfortable, even emotionally painful. We avoid it for the same reason we avoid physical pain. But think about what the point of pain is in the first place. Physical pain acts as a signal that something in our body is out of order or has been harmed in some way, and may require our attention so that our bodies can continue to function properly. It's like an indicator on the dashboard of your car telling you that something needs checking. Emotional pain has much the same purpose. When we feel the emotional pain that comes from being aware of a weakness, we shouldn't run away from it or deny that it exists. Can you imagine what would happen if your body was telling you that your appendix was rupturing, and you just tried to act like nothing was wrong? This would obviously be really bad. But the effects of ignoring or running away from emotional pain are just as detrimental to our emotional and spiritual health as ignoring physical pain is to our physical health. The master does not do this. He or she realizes that being aware of his or her deficiencies is an advantage. Chapter 33 of the Tao Te Ching tells us, Those who know others are intelligent. Those who know themselves are truly wise. Those who master others are strong. Those who master themselves have true power. Just like the trader is profitable by knowing what he or she doesn't know, the sage is whole by knowing where he or she is weak. After this challenge is done, I think I'm going to make a whole other video about self-knowledge, because this topic has really been starting to bug me lately. And speaking of that, do you guys realize that there are now only 10 more chapters left in this challenge? This means that in less than 2 weeks, assuming I don't get sidetracked by making any part 2 or part 3's, this series will be all done. Now, I have a lot of ideas for what I'm going to do after the challenge, and I'm going to tell you that things are going to look a lot different from here on out. I'm not going to give you any more details than that, but the one detail I think I am okay with giving out is that I'm about 90% sure at this point that I will not be doing a similar challenge for the Zhuangzi. I know that will come as a disappointment to a lot of you, but to be honest, I think I've had enough of daily uploads for a while. This challenge has been an amazing experience, and I've learned so much from it, but I'm ready to move on. I still plan on investing about the same amount of time every day into my content, so you're not going to get shortchanged that way. But the end result of all that time is going to look a little bit different. So stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, I really would love to see you in the discord. This is the place to come and talk to me personally if you have the desire to do that, and while you're there, you can take part in the discussions we have regularly about Taoism and similar topics. And with all that said, thank you so much for watching, and thank you for all the support that you guys have given me throughout this challenge, and I will see you all tomorrow for chapter 72. Peace and blessings.