Wisdom: Knowing what you don’t know

Zan Boag wrote in issue 50 of the New Philosopher “ While intelligence can be demonstrated, expertise displayed, and opinions aired with confidence, wisdom is much harder to spot. It often appears as hesitation rather then decisiveness, silence rather than speech; a refusal to act when action is expected.” p.3

I would tell my Social Work students that one of the most important attributes of a good Social Worker is to know what you don’t know. If you know what you don’t know you are motivated to do some research, seek consultation, refer to a resource more appropriate than one’s own service competence.

I also remind my psychotherapy clients that sometimes not doing something is doing something. Knowing when to act and when to retreat is one of the hallmarks of wisdom.

Knowing what you don’t know allows a person to investigate and inquire out of curiosity and a search for new information, meaning, purpose, and truth.

Socrates taught that one of the hallmarks of wisdom is to become increasingly aware of how much one doesn’t know.

To act with certainty, rigidity, and the need to be right at all costs can do great harm to individuals and relationships.

Boag writes further “Modern life doesn’t appear to reward wisdom. We are encouraged to decide quickly, speak confidently, and defend our views. Yet wisdom often requires the opposite: the willingness to pause, to revise, and to accept that the situation at hand may not fit our preferred narrative.” p.3

The need to be right makes people do stupid things. Rather than admit doubt which they think may show weakness, they try to fit round pegs into square holes frustrating themselves and damaging the things around them.

Admitting doubt, tolerating ambiguity, recognizing and acknowledging when one is wrong, or could be wrong is a sign of a special kind of strength called “resilience.” Resilience allows a person to be flexible and bend rather than be brittle, fragile, and shatter.

People deserve second chances, third chances, fourth chances and the encouragement to search for a better way. The ability to shift gears, to consider options, to be open to other possibilities is another of the hallmarks of wisdom.

Peter asked Jesus, “How many times do I need to forgive my brother, seven?” Jesus replied, “No. You need to forgive 70 times 7.” Matthew 18:20-22

Jesus was very wise.

Wisdom is knowing the difference between what you can control and what you can’t.

According to Stoic philosophy what will make a person happy is not money, status, power, possessions but virtue. The Stoic philosophy describes four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. I add a fifth which is kindness.

For next several weeks Nurturing One’s Interior Spiritual Life will be exploring descriptions and practices which facilitate the development of these virtues in one’s life starting with the virtue of wisdom.

There are many factors that contribute to wisdom, the most significant might be discerning what one can control and what one can’t control. This idea was first described by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus which he taught to Marcus Aurelius who describes it in his famous book, Mediations. Today we know it as the Serenity Prayer which is taught in twelve step groups.

Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

A corollary of the Serenity prayer is knowing what matters. Some things matter more than others. The third of twenty one skills of Spiritual Intelligence according to Cindy Wigglesworth’s model is “awareness of values hierarchy.” When one is aware of one’s values hierarchy they are better able to set priorities. Sometimes I ask my psychotherapy clients, “Finish this sentence: ‘The three things that matter the most to me in my life are __________, ___________, and ____________.’”

Wisdom is knowing what ultimately matters and is most important. Osho taught that there are some things that are essential to a person and many more things that are nonessential. I suggest to my psychotherapy clients that they pick their battles carefully. Some things are worth fighting for, but most things in life are not. How do you tell the difference? In answering this question we circle back to where we started in this article: What can you control and what can you not?

Do you believe in love?

To premise your mattering on your poetry, flaying yourself raw so that you can touch the world skinless the better to take it in and transmute it into art . . . and then never to know whether anything you wrote was any good? To live out every day in the presence of such doubts is to live with unease, your whole life at the mercy of your art.

Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger. The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us (p. 17). Liveright. Kindle Edition.

Not knowing whether your work matters is a common feature of artists and human service workers. We do our best and never know where efforts land. This is where faith comes in. We continue to work not because we see and enjoy the product of our labors, but because of faith.

Do you believe in love? How do you know that it matters? Does knowing whether it matters or not influence the degree to which you are willing to love?

What is wisdom?

 Belief in personal control over circumstances that in reality lie beyond our control represents a second category of positive illusions. Locus of control is a well-known construct in psychology that refers to the more generic belief in how much personal control we have over life events, whether or not that belief is accurate.

Pierre MD, Joe. False: How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Make Us Believe Things that Aren't True (pp. 18-19). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

The second of the three lies we tell ourselves according to Joe Pierre in his book, False, is “I am master of my own fate.” People want to maintain control over their own life that’s why incarceration is a major form of punishment in just about all societies.

However, we learn in twelve step programs that the first step is “We admitted we were powerless over _____________- that our lives had become unmanageable.”

One of my favorite jokes is “If you want to hear God laugh, tell God your plans.”

When did you have to admit that your life was unmanageable and you couldn’t control things?

Wisdom is knowing what you can control and what you can’t. The concept is well known in twelve step meetings as the Serenity Prayer.

Annual spiritual wellness check-up indicator two: wisdom

The second indicator on the annual spiritual wellness check-up is wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what you can change and what you can’t.

This idea first showed up in the philosophy of Epictetus who was the teacher of Marcus Aurelius who writes about it in his Meditations. It is known today as the Serenity Prayer.

God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

To what extent do I exercise the wisdom to change what I can and accept the things I can’t and strive to tell the difference?

Put a hash mark on your level of wisdom.

0__________________________________________________________________10

Who will you discuss your score with and how you can grow in this spiritual skill?

Annual spiritual awareness check-up indicator one: self awareness

There are 16 indicators of spiritual health that can be assessed on an annual spiritual health check -up.

Spirituality is defined as a relationship with a higher power whatever that higher power is conceived to be. There is a difference between spiritual and religious. Some people are spiritual but not religious and some people are religious and not spiritual. Some people are both spiritual and religious. The annual spiritual wellness check-up indicators are focused on indicators of a person’s relationship with their higher power which is shared by most religions and none.

The annual spiritual wellness check up indicators can be rated by the individual on a scale of 0 - 10 with 0 being the total absence of the indicator and 10 it being present 100% of the time and 5 meaning that the indicator is present in the person’s life 50% of the time. The check up is to be administered by the individual with themself and discussed with a trusted and respected other person.

Self awareness - To what extent do you know what makes you tick? Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. To what extent do you review your experience of your life and attempt to learn from it: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, annually, only when in pain? People are like onions and we have layers of privacy and secrecy. We know some things about ourselves and other things we are not aware of and lie in our unconscious, sometimes called the shadow or our “blind spots.” Many people when asked what makes them tick have no idea and unfortunately don’t even have a frame of reference within which to consider the question. Another way of asking the question of “what makes you tick” is what are your beliefs, opinions, values, and practices and where did they come from? Why do you think what you think, feel what you feel, and do what you do?

Put a hash mark on your level of self awareness.

0_______________________________________________________________________10

Who will you discuss your score with and how you can grow in this spiritual skill?

Role models of SQ

SQ21: The Twenty-one Skills Of Spiritual Intelligence is a guide to your own hero’s journey. As role models we can look to the noblest human beings we an think of, people like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Socrates, and Mother Teresa. What sets them apart is more that intellectual smarts (IQ) or great interpersonal skills (EQ). It is their spiritual intelligence (SQ).

John Mackey, Forward, SQ21, p.vii

Don McClean sang in his classic song, American Pie, that the three people he admired most are the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

In Paul Simon’s great song, You Can Call Me Al, he sings “Who will be my role model when my role models are gone?”

Having been raised as a Catholic, I was encourage to read about the lives of the saints and to celebrate their feast days when a mass was dedicated to them in their honor.

Who is the most spiritually intelligent person you know? Do you aspire to emulate their SQ? How do you do this?