With wisdom comes great responsibility, and if you want the opportunity to apply your knowledge, you must be disciplined enough to handle it.
It is commonly thought that in order to acquire knowledge and wisdom, you must study books and videos, listen to great teachers or even learn from past experiences of yourself or others. Although I agree with this notion, to a degree, there is one crucial piece to this puzzle that most of us are unaware of: self-discipline.
Imagine that you are highly qualified in business management, for example. What use is your expertise, if you don’t even have the soft skills required to implement what you know and actually manage a business?
How useful are you, if you don’t have good leadership skills? What business will you manage if you aren’t even disciplined enough to focus on and maximise one business at a time?
Not much, right?
This is just one example of how we can overlook the responsibility that inevitably accompanies the acquisition of knowledge.
At other times in our lives, we hope and pray to receive wisdom, but we fail to prepare for it. We must be ready BEFORE it comes to us and proactively demonstrate our ability to prioritise what is most important.
This means gaining control over your own wants and desires. This also means practising delayed gratification EVERY SINGLE DAY.
You’re probably sick of hearing the term ‘delayed gratification’ at this point, because so many people use it - especially when it comes to talking about being successful. But it’s true! In order to achieve the goals you set, you have to be disciplined. There is no other way around it; because when you are called to apply what you know, you will be required to make great sacrifices. And if you are already disciplined when the wisdom comes to you, you will not see it as such a great burden.
If one of your goals is to become wiser in general or in any specific field, delaying gratification will have to be your way of life.
There are so many different ways that you could introduce discipline into your life, and I don’t just mean tangible ways that are visible to everyone else, like cooking healthy meals for yourself. I am also including the subtle improvements you make on a day-to-day basis.
Subtle adjustments could look like controlling your tongue when you feel triggered or angry. It could also look like avoiding toxic situations that would make you act out of character. Although silent and often unnoticeable, these example practices can be the most challenging. However, they actually allow you to preserve your mental energy. This way, you are taking the responsibility to correctly position yourself and your mind to have the capacity to readily accept wisdom.
Another unfortunate blunder we tend to make in our longing for wisdom is the tendency to close ourselves off from key opportunities that present themselves.
What do I mean?
Well, I mean that when knowledge is presented to us in an orthodox fashion or in a way that we are not expecting, we tend to reject or avoid it. Let me give you an example:
Let’s say that you come across a young person, 16 maybe, and they share with you that cancer can likely be prevented with a whole foods, plant-based diet and a consistent detoxification programme.
Most of us wouldn’t believe them, because they would think “they’re too young”, “they’re not a doctor”, “they don’t have any experience” etc. We would instinctively ignore the 16-year-old and readily accept when the doctors say that cancer cannot be avoided if it is a part of your genetic makeup.
Either person could be right and either could be wrong, but most of us wouldn’t even give a second thought to what the young person had to say because of our own prejudices.
We wouldn’t even think about the fact that those doctors were barely taught anything about the importance of nutrition in medical school. Nor would we consider that the 16-year-old’s insight into traditional medicinal practices was passed down from her great-grandparents who are presently alive and healthy for their age.
This is just a hypothetical example to highlight that wisdom does not have prejudice the way that we do. The only criterion wisdom has is about whether a person is willing to work for it. That’s all. We, on the other hand, can become so consumed with the package knowledge is presented in, that we completely ignore the importance of the message.
So when we are on a quest for knowledge, we should be open to receiving new information from ALL sources. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will follow what anyone has to say on a topic, but it does mean that you will set aside your pride and use your discernment. You won’t allow your idea of how knowledge should be share to restrict yourself from receiving it.
It is also important that you refrain from acting boldly in the absence of said wisdom. Acting from a place of limited understanding is naive and can be dangerous for yourself and others. Be patient and steadfast in your pursuit, but don’t be irrational.
Instead, you should acknowledge when you lack the wisdom. Acting from a place of humility and sense of responsibility shows that when you do become wiser, you will likely use your knowledge positively and responsibly.
Remember, wisdom is not just for you. It is for the benefit of others as well. Without this basic understanding, you cannot be trusted to use it wisely.
Great knowledge in the wrong hands can have disastrous consequences, which is why we must be vetted and prove ourselves worthy of what we seek.
Wisdom can sometimes be a heavy burden to bear and it is not always a simple process to gain, but becoming more disciplined is the only way you can build enough strength to carry this great responsibility.
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This is deep 🩷