One of my favorite quotes is from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The former professor Faber says to the protagonist, Guy Montag:
"You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn."
Nobody wants to be humiliated by their ignorance, but the best way to grow is to accept and embrace your own ignorance by trying and failing and always learning. I've practiced this most of my life, and for those times I haven't, I've regretted it. Continuing a conversation where I'm not familiar with the subject and was embarassed to ask for fear of humiliation has always led me to regret that course of action - a wasted opportunity to learn and grow.
