Where are your pockets of relative ignorance? Where do you have knowledge or information gaps in your personal education? How dangerous or destructive are these gaps?

It takes an active commitment to continuous learning to both keep up with change and fill in long-neglected gaps.

Here are five areas of my life that I realized I had gaps that could possibly cause me problems.

• Safety issues: This includes the proper operation of equipment and vehicles. Read the operator manuals. Wear seatbelts in our cars. Wear a personal flotation device in a boat even if you swim. Obey traffic laws. Don’t impair judgment with alcohol or medication.

• Stress, health, diet and exercise: This includes everything that we think, feel, say, do, and eat. And, how much and how often we exert and move. Work to find the correct balance for you between work and leisure, along with exercise and rest.

• Money, finance and investments: A balance between frugality and free spending usually provides both an enjoyable present, while saving for the unexpected and the future.

• Wills, estates and taxes: If you die without a will and you own much of value, you could leave an expensive mess for your survivors. Wills are not very expensive, probate can be. A final act of love is an orderly estate.

• Relationships, acceptance and forgiveness: This is the stickiest and most personal area. I am often guilty of something called, “the fallacy of self-projection.” I look at others as if they believe and would act in similar situations as I would. That isn’t true very often, so it causes me problems sometimes. I’ve had to work on accepting people as they are and how they choose to act. That isn’t always easy.

Do any of these groups relate to your situation? Are there other areas beyond these that you feel you should investigate? There are many ways to fill the gaps we find. We can read articles or books. We can attend lectures or seminars. We can take courses. We can, “go back to school,” and work toward a degree. We can ask experts. Now, we can surf the internet and find many resources. A word of caution with all your methods – verify. Just because you hear it or read it, doesn’t make it true and reliable information. Even when you read articles like this one, they should be guidelines and reference points for your further verification. “Have no more faith in the judgment than you do in the judge,” is a good guiding motto.

Tim O’Brien writes continuing-education courses and presents seminars on stress management.