Source: This post was derived from today’s journal entry

I’ve been realizing something. Over and over again. That I don’t have faith in my own knowledge.

And because of that, I easily get misled. Someone says something contrary to what I believe, and suddenly I’m second-guessing everything. I accept their version instead of trusting what I already know. It happens so automatically I barely notice it anymore.

The guessing problem

I should have a lot of faith in my knowledge. I’ve read widely, thought deeply, made connections. But I don’t. And I think I finally understand why.

All my knowledge comes from guessing.

I theorize about how things work. I construct mental models. I test them against reality. And when the answers come—whether from research, conversation, or experience—I often can’t remember the exact chain of reasoning that led me there. The conclusion feels solid, but the path to it feels fuzzy.

So when someone challenges my conclusions, I hesitate. I don’t have confidence in my knowledge because I don’t have confidence in my process. If I can’t trace exactly how I know something, how can I defend it?

This is the trap: the more I learn through independent reasoning rather than rote memorization, the more vulnerable I feel to being swayed by whoever speaks most confidently.

The India effect

There’s another layer to this. I’m in India.

And in India, a lot of things that are supposed to work the way they should… don’t. Systems are unreliable. Information is inconsistent. The gap between what should happen and what actually happens is wide and unpredictable.

When you live in an environment where your mental models constantly get violated—where the “right” way doesn’t always produce the “right” result—you start to doubt the models themselves. Not just the specific ones, but your ability to construct accurate models at all.

So not only do I doubt my process of guessing-and-theorizing, I also live in a context that seems to punish exactly that kind of thinking.

What I need to figure out

I don’t have a solution yet. But I know I need to work on this.

Maybe it means being more deliberate about recording my reasoning, not just conclusions. So when I’m challenged, I can trace back. Maybe it means accepting that all knowledge comes with uncertainty, and that’s fine. Or maybe it means just trusting myself more—accepting that my guessing has gotten me this far, and it’s probably right more often than I give it credit for.

The goal isn’t to stop being wrong. It’s to stop being so easily swayed by whoever spoke last.

I need to figure out how to trust what I know.

Have you struggled with this too? I’d love to hear how you’ve handled it.