Being Wise Rather Than Just Nice or Clever

How to live a life of significance.

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

We all want it easy. Stretching the brain can be as uncomfortable as working other parts of the body.

It is fairly easy to decide to always act one way — to always be nice, for example. But there are times and places where being nice will result in tragic outcomes.

Being nice to bullies rarely results in any one of them seeing the error of his ways and voluntarily becoming your best friend.

Giving into spoiled children is another example where adult passivity (disguised as being nice) is rewarded by the creation of a brat; someone who mistakenly learns that the key to the abundant life is by throwing tantrums. Eventually, however, even spoiled children will grow and likely figure out that you were not nice when you withheld the discipline they needed to grow into a better and happier human being.

My reason for dropping these posts every day is to remind us both that we need frequent times of reflection along with a few new interesting thoughts to chew on. Its purpose is not to make us necessarily smarter but to help us grow in wisdom. They aren’t the same thing by a long shot.

Smart people can learn and apply things quicker than some with a more average intelligence, but, again, this has nothing to do with wisdom.

Wisdom is understanding context.

It is seeing both the forest and the tree.

It is the ability to read the expression and hear the tone of voice along with the words themselves.

It is learned as much in the quiet as the classroom.

Right now, if you haven’t noticed, there is a battle for your mind going on and both sides hope you will buy their line of argument and contribute to their cause.

I’m not advising against figuring out who is right and who is wrong and taking a stand to live honestly in order to protect yourself and those you care about from bullies.

My words to both of us is we need think wisely.

This isn’t easy.

It’s a discipline.

It comes through conversations with wise people along with prayer and always seeking to do the next good thing.

I believe it is also wise to learn that not every question requires an answer.

Not every battle needs to be engaged.

We can choose our response and hopefully we will find ways to live proactively rather than reactively.