We know more than we need to know.

There is something I don't know
that I'm supposed to know.
I don't know what it is I don't know,
and yet I'm supposed to know,
and I feel stupid
if I seem both to not know it
and not know what it is I don't know.
Therefore I pretend to know it.
This is nerve-racking
since I don't know what I must pretend to know.
Therefore I pretend to know everything.

Our ego tempts us into thinking we’re more than we are.

To succeed in the world we do everything we can to appear successful already.

The pressure to entertain, to sell ourselves, and never to be visibly anxious keeps ratcheting up.

To pretend is to know oneself.

We imagined we knew everything the other thought, even when we did not necessarily want to know it, but in fact, I have come to see, we knew not the smallest fraction of what there was to know.

First, we seem to assume that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t.

Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.

Sometimes we are afraid because success puts pressure on us to continue to succeed.

I feel like you put a little bit more pressure on yourself because you want to perform and not disappoint anybody

how normal it has become to feel as though you absolutely must do more than you can do.

And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us.

We know too much to command ourselves very far.