How much information do you accept as being true in the name of common knowledge?  Let me explain what I mean.  There are a number of cultural myths that lend themselves to some interesting statements such as; 'money is the root of all evil', 'children should be seen and not heard', 'I wants never gets', 'You can't have your cake and eat it'.  There are a whole plethora of 'common knowledge' expressions such as these.

I am big fan of Michael Neill - The Success Coach.  Michael wrote a great book entitled 'You Can Have What You Want'.  In his book Michael talks about something he calls learned helplessness.  He identifies a number of 'schools of learned helplessness'.  The Piranha School, The Elephant School and School of Common Knowledge.  I am not going to go into each one, if you are interested, I advocate you picking up a copy of said book.  This blog is not so much focused on why people give up on things, more an insight into how much we accept without questioning.  Furthermore, how does that acceptance affect the outcome of things that we do?

When I was growing up 'money is the root of all evil' was quite a common expression.  I never really questioned it until my early 30's.  Of course the real common knowledge expression is 'the desire for money is the root of all evil'.  That too is a sweeping generalisation.  Imagine if you were a fund raiser for a charity and your aim was to generate as much money as possible for that cause.  Would the desire for money then be the root of all evil?  Probably not.  Everything needs a context and when taken out of context the results can be dramatically different. 

Start listening to the things that are being said to you and then question them.  If you could stand in 5 different pairs of shoes belonging to people with different belief systems and values, how might they interpret what is being said?  Challenge 'common knowledge' at every opportunity and notice what opens up for you as possibility.