What is Wisdom, and What Makes Someone Wise?

In Psychology, having a single definition of Wisdom is difficult. Some say, wisdom is based on one’s experience and for others, wisdom means knowing what is right and wrong for you. After many definitions of wisdom, we can easily find out whether a person is wise or rash.

Psychology tells wisdom makes a person an expert in solving general problems and dealing with life’s most difficult situations. I believe wise people will understand worldliness more deeply.

Let us discuss the Five Qualities that make a person wise and also how you can apply each point to increase your wisdom:

1. Wise Person is Very Experiential:

It means they pay attention to their surroundings and observe their life’s teaching as a student. That is how it is said that wise people are those who have more experience or who travel alone. And this is true that people who leave their comfort zone and see the world with a new perspective, make themselves better people in many ways. But, you will not be wise when you only have experience, as along with this you need introspection. Which means reflecting on it after the experience. This means what you will do; once you analyse your thoughts and feelings in a more structured and rigorous way.

You may have noticed among your friends’ circle or relatives, that some people after being an adult and having gone through the tough time, still are not mature and have no signs of wisdom. 

This shows that wisdom and age do not have any correlation. If you keep yourself aware of every moment of your life and be true to yourself, you can raise your wisdom.

2. Wise Person Understands the Depth of Observable Knowledge

I just read the book “12 Rules of Life” by Jordan Peterson. In this book, Jordan has covered Science, Philosophy, Mythology and Religion. Many people have explained things that we already know like, “Rule No. 8: Tell the Truth – or at least Don’t Lie” or Rule No. 1: “Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back”.

Normally, when others tell us the same thing, we generally ignore them. But when someone explains things deeply then we feel them in our bones. For example, things which our grandparents used to tell us, are now introduced to science. And this is also proven true; we have been said that we shouldn’t eat anything at late night and keep fasting, now in only a few years different types of fasting are introduced and are so popular now. Science is also validating this type of cultural wisdom.

Even if you go to a Hermit or Monk and ask questions, their answers are simple, and somewhere we know them. But with them, when they explain things with deep observable knowledge, we understand them very well. So whenever we listen or read to our cultural popular messages and written knowledge, instead of rejecting them, we must go into Depth and understand whether it is right or wrong.

3. Wise Person are Kind:

Over here we are talking about Self–interest v/s Social interest, the actual meaning of wisdom, is making a decision in a way that you can balance the interest of both; yours and society. We try to maintain a good relationship with each person while improving life understanding. Where a regular person forces his beliefs and opinions on others and tries to convert them to their political, philosophical, or religious view. The same is for wise people, when it comes to peace; they understand that everyone has their point of view, so they don’t try to convince others to change their minds and only speak when necessary. This way, they do not take hatred to the heart of others.

4. Wise People Have Generally Seen a Lot of Problems: 

Yes, this is true! And they understand the suffering of worldliness very well, because the path to reach wisdom has to pass through suffering itself. We may have also seen that some children are very mature as they may have seen the death of loved ones, or in their family, financial difficulties, or abuse in the house. We must understand that any form of crisis forces us to adapt the situation, and we must ask ourselves about how we should react to these problems.

So, always face your problems instead of ignoring them. Even if there is a problem at work or in your home, hold on for a few seconds in those moments and think about what would be the correct response.

5. Wise People have Patience: 

Patience is a fairly healthy state of mind. It’s where our complete concentration is in the present, not in the past or the future. With the rise in wisdom, we realise that we cannot change anything and everything by force. But most people lack patience because they want all the results at the same time. If we are demanding things to be quick, then we must see things around us. Because most often, we ignore those things that are already around us, and we lose the value of that moment.

For example, farmers understand this very well, that they plant seeds in the soil and water them daily. So as the season approaches, they can harvest ripe fruits and veggies.

But, when they pluck them before time, all the fruits and veggies will stay raw. They’ll never get nutrition and flavors from the raw veggies and fruits, which could naturally get with little more patience.

Conclusion

“Nature doesn’t hurry, yet everything is achieved” 

Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu

Nature doesn’t hurry to complete its task. Even here, it took millions of years for us to become human beings from a single-cell life. So the outcome is “Patience is the Rule of Nature & the real wisdom is to align yourself with the Rule of Nature.”