I feel like an idiot

this post title does not imply in any way that I am one. I just feel like one. I woke up not long ago to darkness around me. Not suprising. The lights were turned off last night. What was suprising was that the inverter was showing a drained battery and had tripped off. It wasn't the first time ever, but it was a first for me in a long time, since it was my first night at home in roughly three months. I then remembered what someone (a former serving colleague) said about my laptop: it draws more power than a tv.

I've been trained as an electronic/electrical engineer (as far as my alma mater is concerned, anyway), and have taken great pride in showing my understanding of not just my (academic) field of study but other fields of study. Yet I dismissed Femi's calculation (I even gave him the final answer) on the power rating of my laptop adapter, and the implied consequences, maybe because he was not a B.Sc holder but a HND graduate, or maybe because he studied mechanical engineering.

My pride and arrogance had blinded me to appreciating the fact that he was certainly the highest earning corps member in my local government, maybe even in the whole state. It can even be argued that he'd be a candidate for the same nationally. Not on his federal or state allocation, but via his skill. In electrical work. My field of study. And so I despised and forgot his results and what they implied, until this morning when I realized for myself my laptop was the single biggest culprit in the inverter's decline.

It's fitting that I heard a message last night, and the speaker talked about someone like me, reading from Ecclesiastes 10:15: A wise and poor child is better than an old king who will no longer be admonished (paraphrased)

As Timbaland said, "The damage is done". But I hope I've learned one vital and valuable lesson: I don't know everything, and I don't need to become arrogant. I'd never been faced with the results of my arrogance like this, but what else might I be suffering from — or even causing others because of arrogance and the blindness it brings?

You still don't get to call me an idiot