#61 - Discovering My Wisdom, One Piece At A Time

By KC Johnson

Lying in bed the other night wondering about where my wisdom came from, it occurred to me that I have been slowly developing nuggets of wisdom my entire life.  I realized that it doesn’t take 80 years of living to suddenly develop a storehouse of wisdom-ladened thoughts.  I remembered back to my early 20s when I held kernels of thought that I felt were life concepts I needed to follow.  I considered why these were life wisdoms and were they real wisdom thoughts. 

What seemed like idyll dream-inducing thoughts we all have just before going to sleep intrigued me to the point of actually remembering the ideas for a morning contemplation as I woke up.  Further reflection led me to realizing that I had been collecting small nuggets that I thought were wisdoms that identified my beliefs.  Whether they were truly wisdoms or just valuable ideas to incorporate into my life, I felt these ideas were worthy of following throughout my life.  But where did they come from and why did I latch onto these ideas?

Where did they come from led me to explore that very process of adopting personal thoughts and values to live by.  Why did I latch on to these thoughts was another deep exploration into why do we adopt any idea or value?  As I considered both of these avenues of thought it occurred to me that this process needed to be a conscious effort to refine and advance my efforts to become a wiser man distinct from the people around me.  Another flash thought told me that choosing to go on this journey for self-growth was not something many people do for themselves, instead of simply adopting the views and values presented by others.

What Are Life Wisdoms?

Why did I think that a thought I created was a life wisdom?  It seems somewhat arrogant to believe that I developed an idea that could be considered a wisdom of life, yet there I was so many years ago secretly believing that I had latched onto a cornerstone of belief that I needed to build my life around.  Sure I had read about many other sages describing their ideas for the ideal life, but my ideas often differed from theirs and yet felt equally as prescient and important for me to follow.

I’ve come to the conclusion that a life wisdom is just that, a cornerstone belief of my own ‘creation’ that surpasses the generally accepted daily-life babble I encountered.  Just as I came up with the outlandish belief that living well beyond the standard idea of life expectancy of 156 years, was contrary to social beliefs.  Yet as absurd as the thought seemed, I knew there was a significant truth behind the thought.  Fifty years later I am now hearing that the idea of extremely long life that I concocted in the 1970s is now considered realistic and likely to be available in the next few decades.

Basically, a life wisdom is one that I have adopted for myself, that has withstood the test of many other competing ideas, and that often are reflected in the writings of other guru teachings.  The difference from simply adopting those guru ideas is your own life wisdom needs to come from you, even when they are partially parroting some other views, the personal wisdom needs to generate from within.

As we age and experience many challenges and experiences, we have  the opportunity to develop other personal wisdoms.  If we are listening to our deep inner voice, we will hear our personal ‘information channel’ that flows through our aware self and our soul giving us sage advice.  I learned to appreciate my own aware self’s voice back in the late 70s and 80s.  Even though I was a confused mess of conflicting ideas searching for ‘the’ answer, I managed to survive my confusion.  Slowly, I collected other ‘personal wisdoms’ that added more cornerstones to my beliefs. 

I began realizing that this is how we create our own true and authentic self.  Even as the personal emotional travails challenged me, I began collecting additional cornerstones that seemed true to me.  As difficult as my mental situation was I began relying on the pieces of wisdom I had collected over the years.  I told myself that I was not crazy, or a lost cause, or that I didn’t have anything to offer the world.  My collected wisdoms were my lifeline that told me I was a good person worthy of being here.

Collecting personal wisdoms is an important process each of us needs to go through.  It requires being intentional about what you want your life to be.  As an old dog I find it sad that so many people, young and old, seem to miss this intentional effort to create their authentic self.  The internet distractions of social media may be the cause.  But the real culprit is that we do not hear supporting comments about creating the authentic self.  Most people may be clueless about what the term ‘authentic self’ means.  I encourage everyone, young and old, to begin self-examining their held beliefs.  Deeply contemplate on what thoughts are true to you.  Thoughts and beliefs that are beyond your parents, friends, and what the media throws your way.  Especially pay attention to thoughts you have adopted from someone else that may not feel right and true to you.  A parent’s wisdom may not be true for you.

Why Did I Choose The Life Wisdoms That I Did?

This was another question I focused on.  Why did I believe that an idea that popped into my head needed to be a life wisdom?  Out of all of the cascade of ideas I considered over the years, what were the defining characteristics of the ones that seemed especially important to me?  At first, some of these ideas were not given elite status within my thinking.  But important ideas continually pestered me.  As I considered them again and again, I began seeing how they were components of my belief system.  For example, I opposed the authority of the government to control the money I earned.  Having read some very persuasive anti-tax literature back in the 70s and early 80s, I became a follower.  This was a passionate decision that I knew would put me in legal jeopardy.  I believe that I was right.  But I also discovered that living in society meant being willing to accept the ‘give and take’ that generalized standards required.  I slowly learned that I couldn’t pick and choose what to follow while following what gave me the best return.

This concept is what we are experiencing today with so many people only wanting what benefits them and forcefully rejecting what they don’t want to follow.  Community is a give-and-take experience, and that was the hard lesson I had to learn.  Back then I lived in a black and white world wanting only what served my needs.  I was stuck in my little boy age where as a child, I had not learned how to share, how to support the needs of others, nor how to understand the challenges others have who are so different from me.  I still oppose the corrupted aspects large governments can fall into, but I appreciate the concept of ‘being there to help those people in need.’

So how did I choose my life lessons to become my wisdoms?   Probably in my older teen years during the 1960s when there was so much social strife and efforts for equal rights, I began appreciating the needs of others.  That appreciation extended beyond my immediate sense of need.  Human rights became a quasi-wisdom, even though I had not yet grown beyond my youthful desire for personal wants.  But listening to those struggling for their rights began breaking down my desire to satisfy only what I wanted.  I see this challenge as one we are struggling with today.

Daily life for so many is a balance between competing for personal satisfaction, meeting personal needs, and finding a way to help others find their satisfaction and meet their personal needs.  Parents do this daily, as do partners, businesses, service providers, and many other human-to-human experiences.

Finding My Core Wisdom

My real world experiences were continually shaping what I realized were truths of living among others who were just trying to live their own lives.  I learned to live life without conditions, accepting people as equals who were just following their own unique path.  It wasn’t my position to judge their journey.  This thought became a cornerstone of my wisdom that took years to appreciate.  When I listened to this truth, my little inner aware self voice didn’t give me that aching nudge that I was being selfish and off-track.  When I did follow this truth about life being a give-and-take, healing-each-other experience, I felt more at ease and more connected to the others I was interacting with.

So why do I select some wisdom thoughts and not others that don’t measure up?  Quite frankly, I’m not entirely sure.  Certainly, sages from centuries ago up through today have expressed the need to accept others as equals.  But I sense that there is a universal explanation that is the guiding principle for how we need to be with others that allows our species to survive.  Our universe understands the power and wholesomeness of community, of learning to appreciate the connection with each other.  There is no other healthy balance of thought that fits community. 

Living a life out of balance has its value as a teaching for the consequences of being in disconnected relationships with others.  These out-of-balance experiences do not nurture the needs of others.  They also push against building a healthy community and building loving relationships.  Perhaps the greatest damage we incur from being out-of-balance is that it damages our sense of self, our ability to love our deep self.  Discovering how to love every moment builds that community and is the expression for making that balance a reality.

Now I am beginning to see that wisdom is just understanding some of the universal truths that we all are trying to understand, that allow our society to survive in the long-run, and that heals our quest for balance.  Our soul, through our aware self’s inner voice, is constantly trying to tell us how to discover our personal wisdom. 

Life becomes a challenge sifting through the noise our judgmental everyday life experiences throw at us. 

 Judgments are our school of hard knocks, our life-lessons coming from our soul.  They are painful obstacles that say, “not this way.”  We need to watch for these tough lessons, measure them with our values, and  adopt the universal truths hidden behind the pain.  Our everyday voices built around fear and judgment are tenacious and don’t relinquish their hold on us.  By paying attention to the universal truths that we know are deep-down true, we return to our pathway of finding happiness, self-love, and a love for the life you are living. - kc