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A common obstacle in personal growth work is the fear of going too far. For example, I recently attended a retreat to learn how to be more open to connection with other human beings. I had an impulse to hold back. I thought, what if I�m 100% open to everybody? I live in a crowded city full of human suffering. My life would become unlivable if I stopped to take in the humanity of each person that I passed. I would have to become like Jesus or something. I see the same type of worry about �going all the way� among the participants in a workshop I teach based on the book Radical Honesty . Wouldn�t it be hard to live 100% honest all the time? As we stretch into new ways of being, the fear of going too far is mostly unfounded. Naturally, I�m about 5% open. Most people are probably ~10% honest (I�m just a little bit more, and I practice it). The chances are tiny that any person will achieve 100% openness or honesty even for a second. The purpose of personal growth activities is to give ours...

I live in a fog of confusion. I don�t know, I can�t know , everything about a topic before I speak. And yet I speak anyway. I find that expressing my viewpoint brings me into contact with the viewpoints most important for me to hear. In order to speak, I must at some point accept my imperfection, accept ignorance, accept certain shame that I was not more diligent before speaking. This is the fastest way for me to learn what I do not know. In the programming world, there is a saying �RTFM�: �Read the Fucking Manual�. It means that you should do your own research and attempt to answer your own questions before asking others. But in life wisdom, in politics, in society, what is the manual? It is impossible to RTFM. Let us be ignorant together and have compassion for each others� ignorance.