Sometimes, the opportunities we miss aren’t the ones we were denied. They’re the ones we never knew existed.
There is a familiar saying:
“What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”
I’ve heard it many times. And perhaps, in some situations, there’s truth to it.
There are things in life we’re probably better off not knowing. Not every opinion deserves our attention. Not every problem needs to become our problem.
But as I look back on my experiences, especially living in France, I’ve come to see another side of that expression.
Sometimes, what we don’t know can affect our decisions, our opportunities and even the direction of our lives.
And the difficult part is that we may never realize what we’ve missed.
When I first arrived in France, there were many things I didn’t understand.
A different country. A different language. Different systems. Different ways of doing things.
Like many newcomers, I depended on information from people who had been here longer.
That seemed natural. After all, they had the experience I didn’t have.
But experience, I’ve come to realize, doesn’t necessarily mean knowing everything.
In my earlier story, “Hanggang Katulong Ka Lang,” I shared how I accepted the belief that Filipinos had very limited employment choices in France.
I had studied Civil Engineering in the Philippines, yet I never seriously investigated what possibilities my education might offer here.
I didn’t know enough to ask.
Or perhaps I thought I already knew the answer.
Looking back, I find that second possibility even more interesting.
Sometimes, we don’t look for information because we believe we already have it.
There’s a difference between not knowing something and believing something that turns out to be incomplete or incorrect.
When we don’t know, there’s at least a chance we’ll become curious.
But when we think we know, the search often ends before it begins.
We hear something from a friend, a colleague, a relative or someone we respect.
We accept it because it sounds reasonable.
And over time, that information becomes part of how we understand the world.
I’ve wondered how many of my own decisions were shaped this way.
Not necessarily by false information, but by information that represented only one person’s experience.
Someone else’s reality became my assumption.
And my assumption influenced what I considered possible.
It makes me wonder how often we do the same thing in other areas of life.
France is a country with institutions, regulations, services and opportunities that can take years to understand.
Even after living here for a long time, I still encounter things I didn’t know before.
Sometimes it’s something administrative.
Sometimes it’s related to employment, education, financial matters or the way public services operate.
And sometimes it’s simply discovering that something I’ve always done in one particular way could have been approached differently.
What interests me isn’t just the information itself.
It’s the realization that something can exist for years without becoming part of our awareness.
We go about our daily lives, following familiar routines, using the knowledge we already have.
And unless something prompts us to look further, we may never discover what lies outside those routines.
That doesn’t mean every unfamiliar system contains an opportunity waiting for us.
But it does make me appreciate how much of life happens beyond what we currently understand.
There is another dimension to this.
Much of what we learn comes from the people around us.
Family, friends, colleagues and communities all influence the information we receive and the perspectives we develop.
This can be enormously valuable.
A conversation with someone who has experienced a similar situation can save us time, confusion and unnecessary difficulties.
But our circles can also shape the boundaries of what we know.
If everyone around us has encountered the same obstacles, we may begin to assume those obstacles are universal.
If nobody in our circle has explored a particular possibility, it may never occur to us that the possibility exists.
I’ve come to appreciate how a simple conversation with someone from a different background can introduce an entirely new way of looking at something familiar.
Not because that person necessarily knows better.
But because their experience is different.
And sometimes, a different perspective is enough to make us question something we’ve accepted for years.
One of the most interesting things about missed opportunities is that we cannot always measure them.
We know what happened in our lives.
We know the decisions we made and the paths we followed.
But we don’t know exactly what would have happened if we had made different choices.
Would my professional journey in France have been different if I had investigated my Philippine qualifications earlier?
Possibly.
Would it necessarily have been better?
I don’t know.
And I think it’s important to acknowledge that uncertainty.
It’s easy to look back and imagine a better outcome.
But the past doesn’t provide us with an alternative version of events for comparison.
What I can say is that I made some decisions without exploring all the information that might have been relevant.
That realization doesn’t make me regret everything that followed.
It simply changes how I understand those earlier decisions.
The older I get, the more I appreciate how much there is still to learn.
Not only about technology, business or the systems around us, but also about people, relationships and ourselves.
Things that once seemed obvious become less certain.
Opinions we held strongly may change as we encounter different experiences.
And sometimes, something we discover today makes us look differently at an event from many years ago.
Perhaps that’s one of the interesting things about life.
We don’t experience it with complete knowledge.
We make decisions with whatever understanding we have at the time.
Then life continues, and our understanding changes.
What seemed impossible yesterday may look different today.
What seemed certain before may become a question.
And what we thought we understood completely may turn out to be only part of a much bigger picture.
I still find myself thinking about that familiar saying.
“What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”
Maybe sometimes it won’t.
But sometimes, not knowing can have consequences.
It can influence the decisions we make, the opportunities we overlook and the assumptions we carry for years.
Of course, knowing more doesn’t guarantee a better life.
Information can be incomplete. Opportunities may not be accessible. And even well-informed decisions can lead to unexpected outcomes.
But there’s something valuable about recognizing the difference between what we know, what we believe and what we have never investigated.
When I look back at my early years in France, I don’t see only the things I didn’t know.
I also see the questions I never thought to ask.
And perhaps that is what stays with me most.
Sometimes, the most important discovery isn’t finding a new answer. It’s realizing there was a question we never asked.
Have you ever discovered something about living in France—or life in general—that made you think:
“Kung nalaman ko lang sana ito noon…”
Perhaps it was something about work, education, money, relationships or simply understanding how things work.
We’d love to hear your story.
Buhay Pinoy in France
More Than Just Surviving.
