The Wisdom Advantage
Unlocking Wisdom - to Better Navigate Life's Complexities with Confidence.
"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." - Alan Watts (1915-1973) British-American philosopher, writer, and speaker.
Wisdom most often grows from a broken frame. When your way seeing and understanding of the world gets challenged beyond your ability to support your mental model of how it all works. Unfortunately the reason people expand their awareness stems from the pain of experience. Unmet expectations, failure, broken relationships, difficult situations with no right answers… All these can hit the pause and reflect button on life. How could we possibly live in a better way? Find more enjoyment or at least less pain from actions taken, and choices made?
The Benefits of Developing Wisdom
Observing people that successfully navigate life’s hardships with wisdom - you can often see the following:
Personal Growth and Fulfillment - They feel more at peace with themselves and their place in the world
Resilience - When things get tough - Wise people will slow reactions into more thoughtful responses giving them an ability to keep their head above the flood and often find ways to lead others to higher ground.
A wider perspective - that improves decisions making - incorporating more potential consequences, stakeholders, interconnections, or dependencies.
Empathy and Emotional Intelligence - being able to intuitively understand not just the observable facts of a situation but also the emotional undercurrents.
Better relationships - By knowing themselves they find ways to enjoy their life more - making them fun / interesting & by understanding and empathizing with others their genuine care can be felt - making them better listeners and understanding friends.
Finding the Wisdom Sandbox - To Explore How You Create Wisdom in your life.
In pursuit of wisdom - you may uncover difficult and uncomfortable truths about yourself. It’s good to put in a few breaks or ask a friend to call you in a few hours to make sure you’re ok when you dive into vulnerable places in your psyche and heart.
Story time: On my journey deeper understandings often get triggered by something external, and in the next hour, day or month the reflection on that disturbance opens me up to things that are not going well in my life, habits, or thinking.
Triggers have been hard conversations, a poem, a walk through a museum, a therapist or friend confronting me on behaviors, or a failure. Recently, these moments come when considering what could I possibly have of value to write about that would positively benefit others.
The sandbox of wisdom is reflection. The best tool I’ve found to capture and create time for reflection is writing.
I will often reflect on what’s challenging me - or problematic and start asking and answering questions. Why did I make that choice? Did I see any other alternatives at that time? Could a good night sleep and eating better have made it so I didn’t react so poorly in that situation? What might they have been feeling and what experience and perception guided their choices? Were there other factors involved that I did not see or might have been out of my awareness? How might my beliefs or patterns of thinking get me into these kinds of situations or arguments? Do these beliefs and behaviors fit in line with the person I want to be and become? How could I change them to improve how I interact with myself and the world?
The Wisdom Journey
"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go" - Dr. Seuss
Understanding and being able to creatively apply knowledge to serve a higher purpose are essential in practicing wisdom. A key part of the wisdom journey follows the path of gaining understanding, which includes the exploring and exposure to the unknown, healing the broken and uncomfortable, and confronting the causes of suffering.
Knowing yourself and how your bias and experience can keep you from deeper understandings and prevent you from behaving in wise ways - acts as a lighthouse keeping you from the rocks of unnecessary arguments and self abuse.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates
The journey to wisdom never ends, we walk this path of life-long learning together as we face fears, improve our decision making, and find a way to enjoy the scenery as we pass through the wildness of life.
