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The Only True Wisdom...

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "The Only True Wisdom" and to end that quote, "the only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing." And that comes from Socrates. I must admit that I first learned this quote and it has stuck with me for most of my life because it comes from the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure which I saw some time ago, unfortunately longer ago than I would like to admit. 

The quote stuck with me and I was thinking about it because I tend to get folks and I want to be clear I am not talking about there is anything wrong with doing things oneself, that is fine. That doesn't really bother me actually at all. The reason is that often times, I will get folks that will contact me after attempting or getting embroiled in a case that really greatly could have been done a different way but it is messed, up, long story short. The situation or the case has become quite a conundrum. It has basically become a Gordian knot and trying to extricate oneself out of it or rectify the situation becomes quite difficult. I often find that folks who get involved in that situation often are either abrasive because they are upset about it, I get that side of it. There is another side of it where they are trying to sort of apply their paradigm or a level of logic associated with it. Oftentimes I see this in a Thai Immigration context but I see it in an American Immigration context too where they will say "well that doesn't make any sense" or "why is it done this way? That is not a good way to do that. It is not efficient". Well I harken back to this, "the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." You just presume you don't know anything and that is just the way that they do it. I don't wish that to sound condescending. In more ways than one I am trying to be condescending towards the system. The system is illogical sometimes. We see this a lot in Thai Immigration. Oftentimes I will ultimately come to a point where I figure out the policy, oftentimes when we are talking to an Immigration Officer for example and I will find out what the policy behind an actual rule or regulation is and I will say, okay, I understand what they are doing but in practice, it just results in a really bad situation. It just results in something that is just very paradoxical in the way that it plays out. We see this as well in a US Immigration context. Oftentimes people ask me well "why does the NVC do things this way?" "why are cases processed this way?" or for example right now "why can't we get a receipt notice out in less than 2 months from USCIS?" Well it just works the way that it works. I am not saying it is good and again I always just kind of drop back to the old Socrates and I just presume I don't know anything and I don't try to apply my paradigm to it. I just say "look this is how it works. It just is what it is," and we move along. 

Going back to what I was saying, I often find that folks who have gotten sort of into the high weeds on their own, they get very frustrated, I think to some degree with themselves for even going ahead with it or they did something they thought made sense that ultimately put their case on a worse posture.

Again all of this, it is one of the reasons sometimes you probably want to gain some professional advice because it can give you some perspective you don't otherwise really have if you have never dealt with the process, especially like Immigration on your own before. The other thing is, if you are still going to do it on your own, and there is nothing wrong with that and you are getting frustrated, the advice that I would give you is to drop back and as far as this process goes, you know nothing. Don't try to apply a paradigm that you would use for other things upon it. Sometimes, even logic doesn't really apply. Just try to get through it as best you can and deal with the system as it is because it is probably not going to change for you.