When You Know Too Much

You become a spectator, standing by the side and passing judgments.You seldom actively participate in a lot of things. You don't get the optimism and vibrancy that comes with naivety. 

The more you know the less enthusiastic you are about most things. You know too much of what won't work that you become excessively cautious about too many things. When there's a new opportunity you stand by as the people around you rush by because you are always weighed down by too many pending questions. 

Knowledge creates more questions than answers. That's why it's no fun having a discussion with a professor, he'll give you doubts about what you think you know and deflate your enthusiasm. A professor would rather give his opinion than his energy. He is a spectator, a one-man jury and a life-long observer. He knows too much to become enthusiastic about the things other people are enthusiastic about.

I am no professor, but have the ill-fortune of being obsessed with data. I love to gather all the information I can. Before I do anything, I would do a research about it. Acquiring a lot of knowledge about it. Unfortunately, if you are as curious as I am it doesn't take too long to become a man who knows too much. So like a professor I find it hard to be excited about what everyone else is crazy about. Regardless of the proof and consistent results, if my bag of questions aren't well taken care of, I don't participate.

I have a friend who is doing extremely well as a Forever Living Products multi-level marketer. He has been telling me of the benefits and verifiable results since he joined actively. I still have the form he gave me about 7 months ago after inviting me for a business presentation on it at Sheraton Hotel one Sunday. Between then and now, his income has gone up greatly. He is a big proof that the whole scheme works and extremely well. Yet I haven't joined or feel tempted to join. And he just can understand what is holding me back.

The problem I have with it is the means. I don't care much about the end, if the means doesn't answer my questions I stay where I am. And my questions are:

1. Why do they have to sell their products at ridiculously high price?
2. Why is income from the scheme tied to recruiting other marketers rather than selling the products?
3. Why do they have to talk about dreams, cars, wealth and every other thing that don't relate to the products? 
4. What happened to GNLD, Tianshi and the many others that were once the city craze?
5. Why is there too many emotional appeal and sense of urgency in the scheme?
6. How is it different from a pyramid scheme?

So I stay away and focus on just the things I completely understand. And that's just one of many. I occasionally get business partnership offers that seem to have no downside, yet because I can't see the need for it besides increased income, I turn them down. I couldn't find answers to questions about what value the partnership will provide beyond easier income.

When you know too much you lose interest in a lot of things and don't get easily excited about great new things. And you always have more questions than answers.