Older and Wiser? Not on Your Life.

Are you waiting for the moment when your hair turns white and you become patient and wise? Do you think as you age you will become wiser?Don’t depend on it.If you were wise at 30, perhaps you’ll be wise at 60, but most of us weren't wise at 30.  Growing older does not make you wiser -a grueling but smart disappointment to grasp facing the precipice of a new life stage. What is the "smart" part of this disappointment? That would be to rely on the truth of your experiences and the information at hand, then make a move or don't make one. What if you are stuck or confused? A circle of discussion may be helpful for understanding but you won't find true wisdom. You only inch toward wisdom when you execute your best judgment. In that forward movement, you'll discover more than you know now. 

Can we make good decisions without true wisdom? We can actually do this, not because we know all the answers to the questions, but because we know enough.The best to hope for is to remember all your life lessons and try hard not to repeat them or versions of them.

Where to start? Not with the second step or the third, but the first – the one close in - as the poet David Whyte describes in his poem below. For me a walk in a cemetery - spectacular like La Recoleta or a humble hilltop jumble of markers in Kentucky - inspires moments when I can best calculate what I know most about living. Others, like the author of Winnie-the-Pooh, find nature inspires contemplation on the unknowns of life.

"Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”― A.A. Milne

If you've wondered how to live in the second half of your life, don't chase wisdom.Find your noiseless place, think about everything you know, then take the first step. That's a close to wisdom as you'll ever need to get. start close in ~david whyteStart close in,don’t take the second stepor the third,start with the firstthingclose in,the stepyou don’t want to take.Start withthe groundyou know,the pale groundbeneath your feet,your ownway of startingthe conversation.Start with your ownquestion,give up on otherpeople’s questions,don’t let themsmother somethingsimple.To findanother’s voice,followyour own voice,wait untilthat voicebecomes aprivate earlisteningto another.Start right nowtake a small stepyou can call your owndon’t followsomeone else’sheroics, be humbleand focused,start close in,don’t mistakethat otherfor your own.Start close in,don’t takethe second stepor the third,start with the firstthingclose in,the stepyou don’t want to take.~David Whyte, River Flow: New and Selected Poems