This month's theme for Random Acts Of Kick Arse is Wisdom!
Here are some thoughts on what wisdom means to me.
Wisdom is a word that is filled to the brim with meaning. Wisdom is necessary in order to experience the fullness of life, yet how does one come to possess wisdom? It isn't something that you can enroll into a university for a few semesters and learn, but knowledge is still a part of it.
One way to define wisdom is: Intelligence that has been shaped by life experience. I like that description because it clues us in on how wisdom is obtained. One must continually learn, test this knowledge in life, modify what you have learned and then apply it again. This is really a never ending process. You must be willing, at times, to change your mind or modify your viewpoint. Wisdom is the coupling of knowledge and experience.
Hopefully, as we go through life, we deepen our understanding of people, things and situations. If we can do this, the result will be that our courses of action, and our decisions, will be what is most beneficial for everyone involved. Wisdom is seeing things from a variety of perspectives, and a large breadth of considerations are taken into account before we act.
Wisdom = A Better Life?
Certainly, increasing in wisdom through the years has benefited me in many ways. My quality of life is better because I stop to consider more often. I think more before I act and I think things through. I have also learned that the more I learn the more I realize I have more to learn (did ya get that?)
Wisdom isn't something that was only for the great philosophers of old, nor is it reserved for the sages of today, sitting upon their proverbial mountain tops. It is ours. All of us. Each and every human on this planet can drink from the well of wisdom, but not all do.
Maybe I am a dreamer, but if more and more individuals come to live their lives with a thirst for wisdom, the world just may become a better place to live.