What we don't know....can HELP us

"...thoroughly conscious ignorance ...is the prelude to every real advance in knowledge."
--James Clerk Maxwell, physicist and mathematician (1831-1879)

This applies to personal knowledge as well as scientific or theoretical knowledge, in my opinion.

To solve a problem, it matters as much, or more, to know what you don't know, as it does to know what you do know. It's where you don't know something that you can make the biggest difference. Deliberately uncovering and examining the gaps in your understanding--of a problem, of a situation, of a person, etc--takes maturity and a kind of comfortableness with your position, but in the long run, it becomes easier and more beneficial than sticking steadfastly to the known while ignoring the unknown.