#MIDDLEBURY
by Pat Iannuzzi
We often use words we think we understand until we try to define them. Then we realize it’s not so easy to explain them, even with the help of a dictionary. Wisdom is such a word. We’ve all heard of it, we’ve all used it, but I think few of us can define it in a way everyone would completely agree with. A definition I particularly like is that wisdom is the ability to use the best approach to accomplish the best ends.
The foundation of wisdom is knowledge. Wisdom reflects how we use our knowledge in a given situation to distinguish right from wrong, helpful from harmful, and truth from untruth. While such knowledge can come from formal learning, it is usually the result of personal experience. If one lacks knowledge, he or she will also lack wisdom. The two go hand-in-hand.
It’s a common perception that wisdom comes with age. The wise have learned from experience what is really important in life and what is not. They have discovered from trial and error how to make the right decisions that lead to success and happiness and how to avoid the wrong decisions that generate pain and suffering. But why wait until old age? That might be too late. Why not apply wisdom throughout our lives?
There are shortcuts we can take to speed up the process and avoid some of the negative consequences that come from personal experience. One way is to observe examples of wisdom demonstrated by others who have successfully dealt with situations similar to those we may be facing. Scholars have devoted a great deal of time and energy to studying the lives of individuals such as the Dalai Lama, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi, people who are widely considered to be prominent examples of individuals instilled with wisdom. By following their examples we can often borrow from their wisdom to create our own.
Another shortcut is to ask questions of others to gain unforeseen insights. Many believe that wisdom already exists within us waiting to be uncovered. As humans, we intrinsically know right from wrong, but this awareness is often obscured by our busy thinking minds, forever trying to help us acquire things we believe will bring us peace, but that actually take us in the opposite direction. Both approaches can serve to uncover paths to wisdom that lay hidden and unrealized inside us.
I think the following poem effectively positions the importance of wisdom in our daily lives:
The Little Ways that Encourage Good Fortune
Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life, you will be
overwhelmed: you may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you have things right in your life but do not know why,
you are just lucky, and you will not move in the little ways
that encourage good fortune.
The saddest are those who are not right in their lives
who are struggling to make things right for others;
they act only from the self and that self will never be right:
no luck, no help, no wisdom.
William Stafford, from Someday, Maybe (1973).
Pat Iannuzzi of Symbiont Performance Group, Inc. is a performance consultant, trainer and coach focusing on selling, presentation and interpersonal skills. He lives in Litchfield and can be reached at 860-283-9963 or piannuzzi@symbiontnet.com.
