“If you are so smart, why can’t you solve your own problems?”

Have you heard somebody telling you this? Or maybe it was you telling it to somebody else?

We always see this happening, especially to people we consider experts in their field. They can solve the most complex problems of others but they seem to fail in solving the same problems when it becomes their own. Examples abound…

A teacher whose kids are faring poorly in school
A marriage counselor who is separated from his/her spouse
An investment consultant with poorly performing personal investments (or doesn’t own investments at all)

I came across a “mini research” on the Internet looking to find answers to this question.

I just skimmed through the findings of said mini research. Nevertheless some of the findings seem to have struck a chord somehow.

The explanation behind this irony is quite simple: We seem to have no difficulty solving other people’s problems because we are not aware of other people’s constraints. If these were our own problems then we are fully aware of our own constraints, hence we have difficulties.

I guess it is just another roundabout way of stating the old-age adage, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”