Are you getting wiser with age?
Whether you are a college student, in your mid-career or a retired, irrespective of your age today, there is something inside you which keep asking “Am I getting wiser with days” and this is one of the most important question to reflect upon.
Here are few pointers from my own reflection on 4 key sub-topics of learning, relationship, being-ness and big picture.
Learning
Where is your focus?
One measure of wisdom is whether you get more excited about learning something or boasting of your past achievements. Someone told me that you should be proud being a reader and a listener and be ashamed to be a writer and a speaker. Though you don’t have take it literally except the substance of this advise that the focus should be on learning than outcomes. Notice when you speak next time, chances are you are either talking about some past achievements or otherwise some future predictions.
Making predictions about future may make you sound intelligent but not necessarily wiser. And similarly having a strong viewpoint on something is not really an expertise. For example, many people are taking an attempt to define a “new normal” because of the current pandemic, but isn’t a more critical question to reflect could be “why do we need a pandemic to define a new normal?”
How well are you prepared?
Another key aspect of learning is how do you prepare for life and for this, how you define “preparation” makes all the difference . This reminds me of one story my father in law shares, that whenever he will ask any kid before the exam about his or her preparedness, the response would invariably “yes”, the pencil box is ready, while there would be no mention of how much studies have been thoroughly completed. This example can be applied in all aspects of our life. Another key aspect of preparedness is, connecting the dots and not look at any one or two factors in isolation. I really wonder how skillfully many stand-up comedians connect the dots on varied topics effortlessly and how much we can learn from them.
Do you need motivation ?
Motivation is becoming an Industry in itself and there is no dearth of people giving fantastic advises even before you ask. One of the downside of all this external motivation is that you start becoming comfortable in not knowing yourself…! Many of them talk about doing this or that will have this or that impact, but the important question to ask is, what makes this impact so impactful specifically for you?
After you know the real impact n this way, decision to initiate something will not only become easy but it will also improve your perseverance. If you are planning to start any challenging project, one simple question you can ask yourself is “how many times I will be trying?” If you are trying to achieve something to copy others, failures may just break you to stand again. Hence it is important to discriminate what is your heart calling and what sounds authentic to you, however weird it may appear, then external motivation may not be even required.
Relationship
How much benefit of doubt you can give?
One of the reasons for conflict in any relationship is lack of space for being yourself. When you are looking at others from a fixed mindset, that this person is like this or that, chances are that this may infact be true about yourself. One example is, many times leaders tell multiple reasons why an employee could not grow, and in most cases, he or she is going through the same challenges himself. Easiest way to cultivate compassionate for others is to first empathize with yourself. If you can simplify your complex emotions for others, you can also understand others complex emotions about yourself. Similarly, not feeding the narcissist in yourself, can go a long way in making you less judgmental about others.
Why “who” is always more important than “what” when dealing in any business ?
When you do any business, lets take a small example from daily life like purchasing milk. One of the easiest way to decide where to buy it from, you can bring your focus from milk to the milkmen. If the milkmen is a pure guy, there is no chance that the milk can adulterated. Similarly when deciding which book to read, look for authors you want to learn from, more than searching on the subject of the books.
With more competition, everything is becoming commoditized including leadership in various fields, so you also have to be careful when defining “who” of somebody and should not give too much importance to anyone just because of their titles and qualifications. As many times, a simple relationship with your watchman could be more relevant than your close family members and you could learn so much more from him than any other well qualified person.
Being-ness
Congratulations if you getting bored in life!
Being comfortable with boredom is a first sign of getting wise, as then you start being more present, experience silence and start hearing subtleness of life, as if there is no time and space. So loving boredom should be encouraged wholeheartedly rather than promoting any sort of entertainment.
Its been a while I went to a salon for a hair cut as post covid it has also become a at-home activity. However whenever I used to go earlier, I would always take out my phone and fiddle with it to pass the time and keep noticing if the hairs are being cut properly in between. Once I forgot my phone at home and so I decided to just close my eyes and be there without even noticing anything. For the first time, I experienced the freedom to be just myself and wondered how a simple haircut could help us to evolve so much!
The real spirituality is always in something other than spirituality!
Enlightenment can be nothing but something which makes you feel very light and simple. Often it is found in something we love and it can be as simple as your daily walk or playing a sport. Believing in only one spiritual practice over others may make you feel as if you are growing, but it is only at the cost of your own openness. Allowing what comes naturally in life could be the best approach to continuously evolve.
When doing my daily yoga, my yoga teacher ask me to smile and enjoy pain happening during the practice, which when applied in life allows me to see all problems as opportunity to grow. Though easier said than doing, enjoying pain is about slowing down and observing it closely. When you become mindful of your pain, one, you will not try to resist it and second, you will also be able to how small is this pain when seeing the suffering of the humanity.
Big Picture
Why Tom Cruise may be wiser than Dalai Lama!
My apologies for this sub heading, as I have learnt so much from Buddhism and Dalai Lama talks. The only message here is not to conclude, as you cannot deny this possibility. Though Tom cruise may look like a worldly person but with so much of experience of playing different roles in movies, he could have connected so many dots and in the process be very evolved internally. The important aspect is, have you learnt the art of balancing the doing and beingness, which is in a way may sound like a paradox of performance. A simple approach is “Lets accept we all are idiots” and be vulnerable and in the process learning and evolving slowly.
It is your house, do whatever you want!
Many times my daughter (who is 10 right now) asks me, can I do this or can I do that, for example, can I move the sofa from living room in my study room or can I make a pencil stand of a new crockery cup. My answer is always “ It is your house, do whatever you want”. Same applies to us and you can say to yourself “this is my world, I will do whatever I want”. If we look at biological food chain of all beings, there is also smaller food chain among human beings, like movie stars respecting businessmen for their money, businessmen respecting politicians for their power and politicians respecting saints for their fellowship. In this larger food chain, you are playing a small role and you can always do as many variations in your roles as you like.
Why heading is more important than the content of the article!
Thanks for reading till the end, the key message is we should be careful that becoming wise may not possibly serve much other than our own ego! Infact living our personal values is the only legacy (or lets call it a soft legacy) we can pass on, when we are no more.
Love and gratitude
