Well, Identifying who the
wisest person is will always be relative. Depending on the emotional assistance
required and problem levels the right person will keep changing, but its
always a wise decision to take control of your doings and be truthful to yourself.
Rather develop a personality that will show you dignified choices and reflects
vision to practice productive thoughts one should develop the virtue of
compassion and should be at peace with themselves.
In various stages of life, we often commit mistakes. The parameters of how grave or subtle the impact of the doings have stayed with the people getting hurt as consequences of it.
“Who
is wise One who learns from every man”? Perhaps to become wise, a person should
learn from everyone; but the wiser he becomes, would he not find less value in
those inferiors to himself?
One
possible answer is that the wise man gleans positive knowledge and instruction
also from negative traits and deeds.
a)
What he does, he keeps to himself.
b)
He is ready to take risks in order to achieve his goal.
c)
The smallest detail is of great importance to him.
d)
He invests great effort and toils in what he does.
e)
He is swift.
f)
He is confident and optimistic.
g) If at first, he fails, he is back time and again for another try.
If
you can’t judge a book by its cover, how can you judge a person on their first
impression? I’ve never liked the cliche about “you never get a second chance…”
because it’s rarely true. Sure, if you spill a grande coffee on someone’s lap,
or set an entire dining room on fire, that would be hard to recover from on a
first date, but most first interactions with people are terribly bland, no
matter how wise either of you are. There just is no secret wise-person
handshake nor a wise-person detection app for your phone.
Instead
it takes an actual conversation with someone to learn who they are and how wise
they might be. Starting conversations isn’t that hard, but there is a stupor
that comes over most of us when we meet new people. Mostly, it goes like this:
“Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine, you?” “I’m fine, thanks” <silence>. There’s
not much chance to notice a wise person here. Our questionable social skills
with strangers mean there are hundreds of wise people we have met at parties,
or stood next to at the bus stop, and never knew it.
I understand social anxiety and fear of embarrassment, but yet it’s still mystifying that after 10,000 years of civilized life our species still hasn’t recognized how little there is to lose in talking to strangers (in safe situations). Why not just assume they are wise or interesting? What is there really to lose if you’re wrong? It’s easy to end conversations with strangers and they likely didn’t even expect you to start one. Therefore, why not make an offer to get outside of the boring conventions of daily life we so often complain about? More to my point, it takes a bit of wisdom about wisdom to find wise people.
Wisdom means not only experienced but an understanding of how
to apply life experience to the present. This means the most likely way to
identify a wise person is to have a conversation about life, which likely means
to talk about a shared, or personal, event that has already taken place. It’s
in their own observations that their wisdom or insight will be revealed (or
not). This could take the shape of lessons learned, of attitudes about
relationships or work, or thoughts about regrets and future dreams.
Now
it’d be weird to go up to a stranger, introduce yourself, and demand “tell me a
personal story that reveals how wise you are.” Don’t do that. But in most
social situations there is a fast path towards sharing stories. For example, at
a party, you can always ask anyone you don’t know: “how do you know <name of
the host of party>” which almost always has some kind of story as an answer
(and you can show your curiosity by asking interesting questions about their
story). And then you can reply with your own answer, but add some leading
context that hints at a story, or question, of your own. Perhaps “We went to
college together a decade ago, but I have to admit I’m not sure I belong here.
There are just too many people I don’t know.” Or even ask for advice about how
to meet new people at events like this, a fun meta-trick (as by asking this to
a new person you are using the question itself to solve the problem).
Perhaps
my party socializing advice seems bound to fail, and you might be right. Maybe
it’s easier to start with people we already know, like friends, coworkers, and
family. But even then there must be some kind of inciting event to wake
another person up out of their daily routines and pay attention to the fact you
are offering a more interesting kind of conversation. There is no guarantee
they’ll be interested or even understand that this is what you are offering.
Yet if you don’t try, you’ll never know if you just overlooked a wise person.
Someone has to (kindly) incite the chance for insight. To find wise people, you
have to be wise enough, or perhaps just sufficiently bold, to reach out for
them.
If
I had to list traits of someone wise, they’d include:
· Experienced –
they’ve had interesting life experiences, both successes and failures and
they’ve asked good questions about them
· Humble
confidence – they have the clarity to share or to challenge my thinking, but
without a strong need to convince me of their view
· Insightful
opinions – their thoughts invite consideration or raise my curiosity (even if I
don’t agree with their conclusions)
· (I very much
want to list a good sense of humor, but I’m convinced that reflects my own
biases)
This
leads to the observation that wisdom isn’t a universal attribute. Some people
are very wise about business but are terribly ignorant about how healthy
relationships work. Or they can give fantastic advice about life to others that
they fail to practice in their own lives (a notorious failing of gurus,
experts, and authors too). The singular word wisdom doesn’t stretch to cover the complexities
of how it, or its absence, plays out in a person’s life, or in the advice they
give. People in their later years certainly have more life experience to work
from, but that by no means guarantees they possess any more wisdom about life
than someone much younger than they are: a person might accumulate ignorance,
or bitterness, at the same, or a faster, rate than wisdom.
In
the end, mostly what we want are interesting people who are interested in us.
Who are friendly, perhaps charming, willing to share what they know, and
perhaps willing to listen for the wisdom they don’t have in new people they
meet.
Framed
this way the titular question of this essay is less daunting. Once you befriend
one person with these attributes, it’s easier to find more. And who knows,
maybe while we’re trying to find what we need, now and then we can be the “wise
person” someone we meet (at a party) is looking to find.
Where have you met the wisest people you know? How did you recognize them? Leave a comment. Thank you if you have noticed the initial glitch in the page. Thank you for checking out my page, I value your time hence thanking you for reaching out,
You seem wise ;)
Happy Reading!
-Love SP
