[pksebben]

I would recommend getting in touch with that fear and facing it. Being afraid of a label is a terrible reason to avoid doing something as important as understanding your job.

Richard Feynman was famous for asking dumb questions - sorry about the dumb article but it was the quickest one I could find (1). There's more if you Google, he wrote about it autobiographically.

Life outside of academia requires this kind of emotional grit - and it's absolutely something you can learn. It takes practice and reflection, and accepting that nobody starts out with the answers.

1 - https://philipliao.com/feynman-and-dumb-questions (edited to add the link)

[rcd2]

I think you're onto something here. Yeah, Feynman is a good source of wisdom. He has other nuggets of wisdom I like (for instance, "You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish."). Thanks for the article. I will read it.