Does it Matter?

There are things you know deeply, instinctively, things you can talk about for hours, things that shape the way you move through the world.

And then there are the gaps.

Not big, obvious holes, nothing dramatic like not knowing how to read or never learning to swim. No, the gaps are smaller, slipperier. They sit in the cracks of your education, in the things you should know but somehow don’t.

Like then vs. than.

A simple distinction, one most people don’t even think about. But for some reason, it never stuck. Every time you go to use it, there’s a pause. A hesitation. A tiny pocket of doubt that shouldn’t be there.

It’s not just about grammar. It’s about something older, something deeper.

It’s about what fear and anxiety take away, the questions we didn’t ask, the lessons we didn’t absorb, the quiet, unspoken gaps left by a childhood spent managing the world rather than mastering it.

The Silent Price of Not Asking

Learning is social. It happens in conversation, in curiosity, in the back-and-forth of questions and answers. But what happens when you don’t feel safe enough to ask?

What happens when school isn’t a place of discovery but a place of exposure, a stage where every question carries the risk of embarrassment?

You learn to survive by not asking.

You figure out ways to work around the gaps. You guess, you mimic, you avoid situations where you might be caught out. And because no one sees the question unasked, no one sees the knowledge unformed.

Some kids don’t ask because they’re shy. Some don’t ask because they already feel behind and don’t want to prove it. Some don’t ask because they learned early that asking means risk, the risk of looking stupid, of confirming a suspicion that they’re not as smart as they should be, of standing out in the wrong way.

And so, the gap remains.

Not a big gap, not one that stops you from functioning. Just a small moment of doubt, a missing piece, a thing that shouldn’t be a thing but somehow still is.

When the Gap Becomes Shame

As you get older, you realise how much of life runs on assumed knowledge, unspoken rules, cultural references, practical skills no one teaches explicitly.

By your forties, you know a lot. More than a lot. You’ve navigated the world, built things, understood complexity most people never even touch. And yet..... then vs. than.

A tiny, stupid thing, but it triggers something irrational.

Because at this age, learning something that others picked up effortlessly as kids feels different. It doesn’t feel like learning, it feels like catching up. Like revealing something that should have been patched over years ago.

And that’s when the real damage of fear and anxiety shows itself.

It’s not just about what you didn’t learn, it’s about the self-doubt that lingers. It’s about that tiny voice that says, How did I miss this? and What else don’t I know?

It’s about the feeling that some part of you is always slightly unfinished.

But here’s the thing: the gaps were never your fault.

You didn’t ask because something in your environment told you it was safer not to. You learned what you needed to survive, not necessarily to thrive. And survival is intelligent. Survival is adaptation.

So maybe the real problem isn’t the missing knowledge, it’s the shame attached to it.

What if learning, at any age, was just learning? No catch-up, no comparison, no invisible judgment. What if instead of feeling behind, you saw it for what it was, an unclaimed piece of knowledge, waiting?

Because then vs. than isn’t the thing that holds you back. The fear of asking is.

And maybe that’s the last lesson, the one we don’t get as kids but desperately need as adults.

It’s never too late to ask the question.