Wednesday, July 25, 2012

confused wisdom

Do you impart your wisdom to others?

I have, but before we start discussing reasons and situations to share your wisdom we need to be clear on the definition.


Wisdom is much more than knowledge. I once told my younger sister that even if her kids achieve more advanced college degrees than her, she will still have a mother’s wisdom that their knowledge alone fails to provide.
 

Here’s a bit of knowledge I just picked up. Google docs and the blogger editor has a tool called “Define” that provides many web based references for any target word.

Perhaps it’s a tiny bit of my wisdom (or laziness?) to use that tool in this post. The tool provided this definition of wisdom (from wiktionary) - 
The discretionary use of knowledge for the greatest good; The ability to apply relevant knowledge in an insightful way, especially to different situations.

The reason I started to reflect on wisdom was a post I read recently. Marcy of “The Glamorous Life” showed her wisdom in her post about another blog post in which a recent college graduate told the world that her generation is the only generation capable of doing social media. After reading Marcy’s post, I thought, it’s common-sense that knowledge and wisdom are not the same. 

But maybe your first wisdom moment is grasping the concept of wisdom.

Doing great things within your school life can leave you with a little too much arrogance when you step into the real life.  Arrogance gets in your way when collecting wisdom.

A friend shared an email of funny and ironic pictures. Two of them illustrate my knowledge vs. wisdom comparison.



Having wisdom is understanding the meaning of “you often get what you paid for”.



Having knowledge of the pet door operation does NOT mean you have the wisdom to use it the best way.


If we are open minded we learn that our initial perceptions of others can trick us. Our wisdom regarding people increases with age because we experience different people with various levels of trust and interaction during our lives. 

If I take time to reflect on my own handling of events, I can become very frustrated in my inability in some cases to apply wisdom (one should know better situation). Wisdom goes unused when emotions like anger charge into the situation. Not all the time. Progress is emotion trumping wisdom less often. 

I don’t hold any special magic keys to happiness or success, but I seen applied wisdom and it improves life. Improve our world, share your wisdom in a comment below.

16 comments:

A Daft Scots Lass said...

I guess I'm good a giving advice but not so good at taking my own advice.

Lilly said...

I guess being wise equates with age and experience. Unfortunately wisdom doesnt hold much weight with the young I dont believe. And I would have been no different. You only have to look at the workplace by way of example. I impart my supposed wisdom at every opportunity. Others may see it as me nagging them or offering advice as opposed me giving them by wisdom. All I know is that I love life so much more being older as I do think I know more and make way better decisions. The longer you live, the more mistakes you make and the more lessons you learn. It does make you wiser. But all jokes aside I do not offer advice to anyone unless they ask for it. I remember what it was like to be young. We learn by our mistakes and we all have to make mistakes. Each of us needs to earn our wisdom stripes. Its part of life.

lisleman said...

a very common problem
thanks for sharing

lisleman said...

thanks for browsing over and joining in on this. You have the wisdom of putting yourself in those younger shoes (possibly subjecting yourself to blisters) and thinking before you speak. I do think there is a balance and difference between "learning the hard way" and "earning your own wisdom". Nothing wrong with questioning old passed down wisdom against today's conditions. But how many people need to perish jumping off cliffs before the others get the idea that it might not be the smartest activity? Maybe there exists a wisdom balance.

Nita said...

I have to agree that knowledge alone does not bring one wisdom. However, neither do I believe that years alone create wisdom. In my humble opinion one can be wise at any age if they have the ability to see the abstract, to understand that every action has a consequence and most importantly be able to reason and learn from not only their mistakes but the mistakes of others. By the way great post to get the brain off pause. :D

lisleman said...

thanks - it's good to know there are brains running out there. I agree that time itself does not magically create wisdom. One needs to be ready to accept it and even better seek it out. I think an adult would need to be a zombie (or heavily medicated) not to pick a little wisdom over any 10 year period. There is simple wisdom or common sense that most people pick up eventually. Also, there are many criminals sitting in prison because they deceived themselves with their own fake wisdom. You are so right about it being an abstract type of thing.

Kathy said...

Love this post.....some of the wisest people I know are not the most educated. Living life and experiences give you wisdom beyond a text book. But with that said my hubby is a reader and he is full of useless info that might count someday as wisdom!

Barbara Shallue said...

This post is full of bits of wisdom.The frustrating part is that, for the most part, when we're young we don't understand or believe it.

lisleman said...

I think not believing is harder to overcome than not understanding. Well as they say - nobody said life is going to be easy. thanks

lisleman said...

Oh I agree with you about advanced education. What determines if his knowledge is useless or useful? I don't know.
thanks

Joanna Jenkins said...

I totally agree with you. This is something that should be printed on the back of every graduated diploma!
jj

lisleman said...

Good idea but wait a second. Most people don't even look at their diplomas much after graduation and even less at the back of them. Maybe written on beer cans and wine bottles would be better.
thanks

oceangirl said...

You have to be young and foolish before you could be old and wise. Howdy Bill.

lisleman said...

It's more fun that way. I never consider it a prerequisite. Good to see a comment from you. Should we get our hopes up for a new post?
all the best

oceangirl said...

You are so very kind Bill. I do not have the voice to blog yet.

lisleman said...

I'm sure a few ideas are formulating and you'll know when they are ready for us to enjoy.

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