Some facts about my dark spreadsheet past:
- I had learned to use VLOOKUP before.
- I had vowed to use VLOOKUP before.
- Whenever I had an opportunity to use VLOOKUP, I forgot how and didn’t want to spend the time or energy re-learning, so I just used a different formula or function.
But yesterday, I had an Excel task I couldn’t see an alternative solution for that wouldn’t require an hour of extra work, so I took the 5 minutes to re-learn how to use VLOOKUP yet again, and then I actually used it.
And it worked.
Of course, while I felt triumphant for finally applying something I should have been using for years, I also felt slightly stupid for having not bothered to use it for years.
I shouldn’t shame myself for that, though, and you shouldn’t shame me for that either. If we shame people for taking too long to learn a new thing, then we are basically saying it’s better to remain ignorant than become enlightened if mostly everyone else already did it earlier.
And that’s just silly.
Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is power, and maybe it says something about me that I’d rather not dig into right now, but I choose power over bliss.
A New Thing Every Day 