“By three methods we learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second by imitation, which is easiest; and Third by experience, which is bitterest.” – Confucius
I wonder why isn’t life gifted to us with a brain full of knowledge and a heart full of wisdom. Each time I face a difficulty or get stuck, I wonder that why are we supposed to learn life the harder way.
Ever since my childhood, I’ve been trying to become a better human. I don’t fail to learn anything which I think might improve the quality of my life, even if at a small extent.
But yet, every time I realize that life doesn’t ever become perfect. Life is unpredictable, and you cannot ever guess its next move.
- If you don’t do things the right way, all that you get are regrets.
- If you don’t plan in advance, what you get are failures.
- If you don’t act early, you’re left to suffer.
- If you don’t learn the basics of life, you’re kept from learning anything further.
But who knew all this?
Then I was a child, unaware of all these secrets and surprises life had to reveal. When life is normal and suddenly something goes wrong, it feels like someone has stopped the music you were listening to, and punched you right on your face. Yes it’s heartbreaking when life leaves us to some unexpected turns.
I wish that there was someone for me from beginning of my life who would have taught me not only about the subjects of school, art, or etiquette, but also about this thing called life .
However, what I’ve realized is that, that wouldn’t have worked either. I’ve learned a simple truth – life is meant to be learned. You need to make your own mistakes, fail several times, and stand again. It’s the right way of how life works.
If you live a completely based on others’ terms, it’s their life, not yours. Simple.
Also, one thought always keeps poking my mind. It stays inside me and makes me insecure by reminding me about itself. It disappoints me and makes me think sometimes that life is indeed a tough thing.
That thought is – by the time I’ll have learned to live, the time of my death would arrive. Although, I don’t about it as much I used to think in the past.
But life is such. After all, we weren’t born with a plan or instruction manual for ourselves. We learn to live, find what makes us happy, live our passions, and do all this by discovering the rules by ourselves.
We all start this life as idiots who know nothing. Slowly we learn, grow, and somehow find our own ways of living. That’s what I call wisdom. The wisdom that changes us along with the changes that happen in our lives.
You shouldn’t completely rely on someone else for wisdom. Whether it is your coaches, favorite self-help books, relatives, friends or anyone else. They all can only teach you, but it is you who has to learn and live.
Don’t you ever wonder that, why some people are wise, whereas others are still feeling lost?
If you don’t choose to be wise, you’ll always have to depend on others. Where did Buddha or Socrates get wisdom from? To be true, you have to be wise by yourself. Others can help you by giving you clues, but it’s you who has to use that help to become independent.
There are no ‘Wisdom Pills’ which would make you wise instantly or ease your life. If you don’t take a stand for yourself, then all I can think of is that you’ll have your bookshelves full of books, and hard-disks full of podcasts, and yet you’ll find an uneasy nothingness within yourself.
Don’t get me wrong. Think of all the people who inspire you to have a better life. The ones who ask you to follow your dreams or who publish a series of books. Were they born wise? No.
One simple truth which I wish I could shout out to the whole world is that we learn wisdom only by discovering ourselves, which isn’t a tough job either.
Don’t you ever think that your wisdom should be perfect. It should just be enough to help you in leading a happy living. Who knows if you might become capable of teaching it too?
These are the 7 impeccable ways of gaining wisdom
1. Introspection
You may also call it self-awareness or reflection. The habit of introspecting at regular intervals can bring a clarity to your life. It will clear off all your doubts about your dreams, relationships, job, or anything else.
All you have to do is that, just sit in peace, and dare to question yourself about everything. I bet if your questions won’t be followed by answers.
Ask all your what’s and why’s, and discuss them with yourself. The answers you have been searching for outside, will be found within.
It might sound indifferent to you, but I used to lie on my bed, bury my head under my pillow, and then introspect. And guess what? It works. Always.
2. Listen to your feelings
Your feelings act like the road signs in your life. They show you the proper directions and make your life easier. All you have to do is just pay a little attention towards your feelings, and listen to what they say.
Your feelings aren’t inside you without a reason. They’ve got a purpose for being there. If you ever feel a voice speaking within you or your thoughts conflicting with each other, know that it’s your feelings which are trying to show you the right path.|
The best thing about feelings is that they don’t lie.
3. Do what works for you
There’s a lot of advice out there. Which one should you listen to?
The infinite voices around you might not help you, but they’re definitely capable of leaving you in a confused state. Before you decide to get another piece of advice, try to find know what works for you.
What works for one person, doesn’t necessarily work for the other. Try to find out what works for you in anything. This trick works universally in all aspects of life.
4. Observe
The whole world around you is a book of of wisdom. All the happy, depressed, wise, cruel, and other type of people stay here. This is the world which inspires artists to create art and philosophers to learn wisdom.
If you curiously observe everything around you, you’ll learn a lot. All the events occurring in your surroundings are live stories of something. Try to learn from them.
I learned chess by simply observing. I observe people to know more about them. I observe my own life to know what’s really going on in it.
Observation it another key to wisdom. You cannot deny its potential.
5. Learn from mistakes
Making mistakes isn’t really a big mistake, but not learning from them is.
Everyone around you makes mistakes but what separates the better people from the rest is that they learn from their mistakes.
Don’t only learn from your own mistakes but also learn from those of others, because life is too short to make all of them. If you find something wrong happening in your life, then chances are you might be doing something in a wrong way. Try to find the flaws in you and your work, and finish them to be a better yourself.
When people ask you to learn from mistakes, what they mean is that you don’t make the ones which you had made previously and improve what went wrong. These mistakes form the base of your experiences.
6. Embrace change
Get familiar with the changes that keep happening in your life. They’re never going to stop.
If you’ll run away from change, you’ll get closer to the negative side of everything and give yourself a big reason to be sad. Try to act a bit more courageously and adapt to the changes that are happening around you, this is the only proper way to survive happily.
We are made to change. Isn’t changing for betterment same as what we call progress? Accept the changes that make you better. There’s no point in resisting. Change your habits, change your work ethics, change your lifestyle – change yourself.
7. Never stop learning
It does not matter at what point you are in your life, there are always ways for making it even better.
You may be content with how your life is, but don’t prevent yourself from growing. Your life consists of several aspects in which you are intended to grow, and learning is the only way of doing it. With every tiny attempt that you make towards learning, you get closer to perfection.
Look back at your past and try to recall that how you used to be then? And look at what you are now. What was it that made you better? Obviously, it was your habit of learning.
How will you know whether you have become wiser than you were?
There are no standards for calculating wisdom, but you can tell whether you are wise by knowing yourself.
If you’re wise, you won’t feel lost. Your decisions might still be a little blurred, you may still doubt your dreams, but yet, you will be at peace. Because in your heart, you will know that everything will be alright since you’ll be wise enough to act for yourself and capable of making things better.
You will still read blogs and books, listen to podcasts, or attend conferences. But you will not do it because you’ll feel damned or depressed. Instead, you will do it out of your clear intentions of bettering yourself.
You will start believing in yourself, and become self-dependent.
What do you think makes us wise in life? I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment.
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