Knowledge is Power ? Sorry, NOT TRUE !!

We hear this popular cliche “Knowledge is Power” being said too many and too often by many people without really knowing its true meaning. And in fact our education system in general is still adopting this approach. We are accustom to sit down and hear a lecture to gain our knowledge at school and most of the time, that’s the only things we need to do to pass the exam and officially tagged as ‘having the knowledge’. But is it still relevant?

No longer relevant…

Only some know that this phrase “Knowledge is Power” was made popular by British philosopher, Sir Francis Bacon from 16th century [1. From "Scientia potentia est" (latin) - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_is_power]. And as we know, around that time, the human race still in the middle of so called “Scientific Revolution” where basically we were still confuse about a lot of thing. For example: we were not sure at that time whether earth is round or flat. Hence, just to know something at that time, someone would become considered powerful.

These days, with the current information technology, we are living in the abundance of information. If you ever want to know about virtually anything at all, just go to a library or even online, type your keyword in Google or other search engines and voila… there is your knowledge in less than a blink. Do you feel more powerful after reading it ? You should not…

There is too much information that can be seized by you on any particular topic in life. Getting the information is easy, but the more challenging task is to filter that information which one is really needed, which one is not necessary or simply just too much.

The Danger of Information Overload

As a matter a fact, we are all in the danger of “information overload” where there are too many knowledge about one particular thing, so many that some are slightly different from the other or even some are contradict each others and we are the one left in wonder – confuse and don’t know what to do. For example: you might read an article about “investing in stock market is risky” then you will also read about “investing in stock market outperform all other investment vehicle”. So, which one is true ? Both side show their evidence, you might see some real people losing money from stock market, but yet you also see some people make a handsome profit from stock market.

The real danger of “information overload” is to make us doing nothing. We will procrastinate and justify the reason because we still need more information (hence keep reading / studying / searching for the holy grail of the subject without end). Read How to Overcome Information Overload if you’re interested.

Knowledge is just Potential Power.
In-context ACTION is the POWER!

So it does not matter if you know a lot of thing, as long as you don’t make the knowledge into ACTION that knowledge will not become power. But as soon as you TAKE ACTION based on that sound knowledge, then you will immediately see the power of the knowledge being unleashed and result will come up very soon after. Buf course the knowledge itself is really crucial, without it you don’t even have the potential. But having it is not everything.

Let see an example: say you have all the knowledge about making money from stock market. But without taking the action to open an account and take that real trade, your knowledge is just simply knowledge… nothing more. But once action is taken, that knowledge become a power, you start getting real money, you start getting real experience about the market that is not mentioned or can be explained on the material that you read. The knowledge become real and via an action the knowledge then become the power that you after.

One important note here is that the action should be the one “in-context” means relevant with your goal and the context of the knowledge. For example: although you know the strategy in investing in stock market, you just simply take a gut feeling to buy or sell against your trading plan. Here, action is taken, but out of context. Even if it is successful, you will not see the realization of your knowledge into power. Simply because the action is not “in-context”.

One other simple analogy: say you have a lot of money in your hands and you are now really hungry and your goal is to have your favorite dishes for dinner. But unless you take action, you can have all the money in the world, but your goal will not be realized. Many action can be done: go to supermarket, buy all the ingredients and cook it (or have someone cook it) -or- call a restaurant to have it delivered -or- go to the restaurant and order it there, etc. All of them are what considered ‘in-context actions’ – all of them make you getting closer to your goal.

So, from now on, remember that knowledge is just potential power, in-context action is the power !