Not knowing feels awful for a minute. Pretending to know feels awful forever.

Admitting a gap is a brief, sharp cost. Concealing one is a small ongoing tax: the questions you cannot ask because you were supposed to know already, the growing distance between what people think you can do and what you can. The first hurts more in the moment and is over.

Say so in four words when you do not know, then ask. Nobody remembers the admission for long; they remember whether you got competent. Pick the one thing you have been faking longest and close it quietly this month.