(Originally written on January 27, 2013)
What is wisdom? What exactly does it mean to be wise? Well, you could find a dictionary and read the definition, but I really don't think that's adequate. To me, it's about much more than just being smart or acquiring knowledge. Allow me to explain. When I graduated from high school, nearly ten years ago now (still hard to believe), I looked at the world the same way that I imagine many other 18-year-olds do... that I have my whole life planned out and that I already know everything that I need to for being successful in life.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was just the beginning. When I got to college, I quickly realized that it would not be a simple validation of everything I had learned and accomplished up to that point, but rather a learning and eye-opening experience unlike anything I could have expected. In college, I made some great friendships and gained a lot of book knowledge, especially about my major, political science. But I also learned about life; asking questions, challenging my beliefs and those of others (in a civilized manner, of course), and perhaps most important, being open to listening to and learning from others. I was constantly amazed at the knowledge of my professors. And, living in a small dorm where you get to know a lot of the guys pretty well, I benefited greatly from my interaction with them and learning about all their different experiences from the first 18-20 or so years of their lives.
I don't remember when exactly it was, but eventually I realized something... that to be wise, I must first recognize that I do not know. What don't I know? Well, a lot, actually. And I work in a library, the one place in the world perhaps more than any other where I am confronted by this fact daily. Every day I see thousands of books I have not read, hundreds of CDs I have not listened to and hundreds of movies I have not watched. Sometimes I even get stumped with a computer question from a patron and have to work through the problem not knowing what the answer is. Just the other day I spent about an hour trying to help a lady download e-books onto her Kindle because it wasn't working and she didn't know how to fix the problem. She came to me for help, but it turns out that I learned just as much as she did. I don't want to miss out on using even my current job as a learning experience; in fact, many of my co-workers, most of whom are older than I am, have been willing to offer guidance as I try to build my career path.
Yes, even today, just a couple of years shy of 30 years old, I am still learning daily. Even after college, I found myself learning more about life all the time. The first two months after graduate school when I had no job at all, followed by nearly two years of working in a job outside my career path while getting rejection letters from employers almost daily, were an incredibly humbling experience. Indeed, patience teaches virtue perhaps better than anything else. Being deprived of something that we either need or desire may bring temporary pain or discomfort, but it is in this way that we gain strength, build character, and learn more about ourselves. Not to mention, it has helped me personally with my faith in God.
Whether it be looking for a job, waiting for a spouse, or hoping every year that this will finally be when the Cubs win a championship (I know someone out there was thinking it, lol), it all has a purpose and a lesson, even if it does lead to many frustrating days. I once heard a preacher say that every time someone tells you "no", that means that you are one step closer to your "yes". When we have to wait for something, not only can we learn a lot, but it will also make success that much more enjoyable because of all the time and hard work it took to get there. I hope for all of you out there, that when you finally do achieve a goal after lots of patience and hard work, that it is better than you ever imagined.
Now after all of this, am I claiming to be a truly wise man? Well, I’ll leave that for you to decide, lol. But I am still relatively young and I know with certainty that there is so much more out there for me to learn and to try to understand, and I look forward to those challenges in the future. You’ve probably heard the saying, “Ignorance is bliss”, and maybe I was a more blissfully happy person ten years ago. But there’s no doubt that the 2013 version of me is stronger and wiser than the 2003 version, and I hope that the 2023 version will be even better.
