“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” –– Thomas Jefferson
It is impossible to talk about the price paid to achieve wisdom. Sometimes wisdom comes in an instant through a single moment or turning point! A sudden insight gleaned at the intersection of fate, awareness, understanding, and surrender.
Sometimes, wisdom is only gained through steady study over years of dedication. Slowly turning pages on volumes of texts, I have read to gain knowledge that can only come from lifetimes of experts and the gifted.
Yet, wisdom rarely comes as expected. I believe the most memorable and valuable lessons wisdom imparts occurs when suffering the catastrophic. Through experiences of loss like fire, flood, diagnosis or death there is a power wisdom gives when I have reached the end of what I thought I could endure and chose to surrender my life to something bigger than my plans and my own understanding. In this moment of surrender, we lean on the only things available to us like our own strength or faith.
In the simplicity of choosing not to exalt the suffering or problem and instead make a choice to believe in something greater––like the power of the Creator to be sovereign in the situation––we experience a shift. By choosing to believe in something higher than the problem, we let the Universe know that we are wise. Perhaps wisdom visits those that make the decision to believe in something beyond their own experience. And that simple choice places our foot on the path to great wisdom.
And yet traversing this path can bring consecutive disappointments or joys. Ones that can come in minutes, hours, days or years of time. And with each passing disappointment or joy, new ways of living life are demanded. These detours become the only way I would ever meet wisdom, free from my old ways of seeing and doing.
Tired of pain, failure, depression, and foolishness I can naturally begin to look to other solutions that bring the wisdom I require for a particular season of life. Ways to beat old patterns––like melting into relationships and forgetting myself, or disappearing in other ways in my life by living out of balance and giving too much power and control to others. Wisdom wakes me up every time and says to choose equanimity and in that moment I regain my balance.
I am convinced that anyway I might meet wisdom, even though it can create hardship and challenge every time, a gentle ease accompanies the experience. For this reason, I believe that wisdom is a woman. When I meet her, a knowing beyond measure calms my spirit even if she reveals something I don’t want to learn. Although she may take her time, she rules my life like a queen. I bow in reverence to the power she gives, a willing servant, unafraid to really see her when I am ready and brave enough to view my life honestly.