Expert Schmexpert

The older I get, the more I realize I don't know everything.

This realization is both disappointing and liberating.

I don't know everything.

Will I ever? Nope. Not even close. That's humbling, especially for us "achiever" types, who are obsessed with excellence and improvement in every facet of our lives. Will we ever reach the finish line of this race and get to enjoy our victories? Is there ever a place where we can stop striving and simply rest upon our successes?

No, I don't think so.

There's always another mountain to climb.

Sounds exhausting, but it's not that bad. There will be rests and pauses to savor the view from those peaks. Yet if we do this thing right, we always have challenges yet we know more today than we did yesterday — and we keep improving on all that we know: that's exhilarating.

• To stagnate would be boring.

• To never grow would be frustrating.

•  To stop adapting would be to die.

Who wants to stay at the same PR for their deadlift their entire lives? Never get a better "Murph" time? Keep making the same mistakes again and again? Not me. And I hope not you either.

See, I'm not a fan of the word "expert" – so many people label themselves experts and then just sit back on their laurels and proclaim.

So many "experts" have stopped learning, because they think they know it all.

I am a huge fan of the word "student" though. The continual, life-long quest to learn? Yeah, I can get behind that.

This is what I want: to be learning until my last breath.

I don't know it all. That kind of sucks. But get this: I don't know it all.

And that means I can still learn so much more.