Application, Decisions, & Aging with Wisdom
Wednesday Wisdoms for June 4, 2024
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom, our 3x3 Newsletter where I distill worldly advice for better living with 3 quotes, 3 observations, and 3 questions.
If our content were a doughnut, free would be plain and premium would be sprinkled with everything awesome. Upgrade for a taste.
Application
🤨 Quote
“A man of practical wisdom [must] take cognizance of particulars.”
Aristotle
Source: Practical Wisdom
Observation 🧐
The Enlightenment philosopher Frances Bacon famously said that knowledge was power, but knowledge is only power, and in turn wisdom, if one knows what to do with such information.
In today’s day-and-age we need to hold the ability to distinguish the signal from the noise, the knowledge that is important to our needs. This is what practical wisdom is for, application to specific situations.
Aristotle summarized the idea by saying we “must consider on each different occasion what the situation demands, just as in medicine and in navigation.”
In other words, we need to be attuned to the situations at hand and approach them with the proper knowledge they demand. We need to know if we should use a hammer versus a screwdriver, apply force or provide space, allow things to work themselves out or intervene.
This requires we show up in the world. Practical wisdom comes from practice, experience, trial and error, continuous learning, and perhaps more than anything, failure.
🤔 Question
What piece of wisdom have you collected over the years that you feel is priceless? Does that transcend areas or is it specific to a single focus?
Decisions
🤨 Quote
“You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.”
Marcus Aurelius
Source: Meditations 6.52
Observation 🧐
One thing that is apparent to anyone who has ever experienced anger is just how quickly the emotion can completely take over one’s thoughts and actions.
Some of us like to even blame the individual who invoked the emotion for what they caused us to do. They turn to us and say things like, “Look what you made me do!” Or “If you hadn’t made me angry, that wouldn’t have happened!”
This loss of control, however, is not just tied to anger, it is in fact tied to any strong emotion we feel. And it is in these moments, when the emotions we feel so strongly, that the Stoics caution us.
Epictetus, for example taught his students that “whenever someone provokes you, be aware that the provocation really comes from your own judgment. Start, then, by trying not to get carried away by the impression. Once you pause and give yourself time, you will more easily control yourself.”
And this is what Marcus is reminding himself in Meditations. You don’t have to get carried away by this, you do have power over your thoughts, over your actions.
It is not the actions we take that matter in situations like this but the decisions we’ve made beforehand, about whether or not we will allow something to upset us.
Wisdom, therefore, is knowing the power that resides within our control and resisting the pull to just react, and instead, try and logically think through how we wish to handle the situation at hand.
🤔 Question
Life is filled with obstacles that want to draw us in and get our emotions riled up. What is one tactic you have found that helps you distance yourself from these emotions as they arise? How can you always keep this at the top of your mind as your “go to” when you become emotional?
What the chocolate bar?! What is this paywall? Fear not!, you can read the entire Wednesday Wisdom (and all premium content for that matter) by splurging a little on your brain cells.
They've been good to you. Treat them to some premium content and worldly wisdom.