I was accidentally watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? the other night, and was suddenly emotionally invested in a stranger’s life. Honestly, it was more thrilling than a true crime series on Netflix. I don’t say that lightly.
This 28-year-old guy was sitting there, not trying to impress anyone. You could tell pretty quickly that he wasn’t there for the show, like so many others before him. He was there to get something done.
When he reached €500,000, with no jokers left for him to use, they asked him what he’d do with the money. He said he’d pay off his apartment in Berlin. Normally, you would hear “holidays” first. But he knew this kind of money would change his life, make his future more stable and secure.
Now, you could say: how boring, playing safe, nutter, life is for experience, not material things, and all that.
But honestly? I’d do exactly the same.
He gambled once with shaking hands, went for half logic, half gut feeling, and secured the money. I was so delighted for him. A humble, grounded man who was able to think long-term, beyond thrill and shallow excitement.
With a million, he said, he would have loved to go to the Vitra museum in Basel, checking for fitting designer chairs for his living room.
How charming is that?
But what impressed me the most and prompted me to write about it came after that.
We live in a world where everyone feels the need to have an opinion on everything, all the time, publicly. As if not knowing something would somehow disqualify you as a human being.
And yet, in that exact moment, under real pressure, not knowing—and saying it out loud—made him the smartest person in the room.
Now the one-million-euro question could have made him go to Basel or go home (with 500 euros). That is pressure.
Am I gambling? Am I taking the risk? Will I embarrass myself?
That’s dangerous territory: not the not knowing, but the part where you don’t know, but you don’t want to admit it.
“Pride comes before a fall,” as they say.
Many people would rather disappear into the floor than say, “I don’t know.” The fear of being judged or perceived as stupid is so strong that it leads to genuinely stupid decisions.
We try to stay in control of the situation by producing an answer, any answer. It’s almost automatic.
You see it everywhere. People having opinions on things they barely understand, explaining their own lives in ways that don’t even feel true to them, pushing decisions because they think they should already know what to do.
And most of the time, that’s where things can get really messy.
Not because people lack intelligence. But because they override it, with ego, self-doubt, pressure, and the need to appear certain.
Now, he didn’t.
He sighed in relief when he saw the one-million-euro question and said he was grateful that the decision was made so easy for him.
He didn’t know, he was not willing to pretend he did, nor was he willing to guess.
And so he simply said: “I don’t know,” and walked away richer than any clever appearance would have made him.
He wasn’t in the game to prove how intelligent he was. He left, clear, smart, secure, and with all his dignity intact.
“I don’t know” was not the embarrassing moment here, but the smartest.
So this is for you if you tend to overthink, second-guess, or feel like you should have everything figured out.
When we don’t know, we start explaining, guessing, reaching for something that sounds good enough—and sometimes that costs us more than we realize.
There’s something powerful about recognizing the edge of your own certainty and not stepping over it just because the moment is tempting.
I keep thinking how different a lot of decisions and relationships would look if more people allowed themselves that sentence at the right time.
“I don’t know.”
And being okay with it.
It’s not the end of anything. It’s just where things are clear again.
But what do I know…?
→ What happens when you stop forcing answers you don’t have?
Christine 🥂🍾
