What You Don't Know Poem by Shanta Acharya

As a child you instinctively know
there are things you don't know,
you also know you know of things
the adults think you don't know.

Growing up is a process of knowing,
of knowing you don't know,
acknowledging that others might know,
though they don't know that you don't know.

Wisdom comes when you can forget what you know,
when you know your parents, friends, lovers, well-wishers,
even your enemies, your best teachers, don't know,
for what is worth knowing is what you don't know.

Some people are born plain lucky,
they sail through life without knowing
they don't know, and not knowing
they don't know what is worth knowing
protects them from a lifetime of unknowing.

For most of us there is a price to be paid,
most of us get damaged, more or less, in the process
and end up knowing what is not worth knowing.