Knowledge Vs Wisdom

Knowledge helps you in your daily living. Wisdom helps you in living your life.

Wisdom is an important element in achieving life satisfaction. However, we seem to focus on gaining more and more knowledge without applying it to develop wisdom.

For example, knowledge can be instrumental in acquiring financial rewards but without wisdom it won’t be long lasting.

Yet, time was when wisdom was highly prized. Those with wisdom on a broad range of life experiences were sought out to dispense advice and to deliver the pearls of wisdom people craved.

Now, though, it’s all about grades and acquiring the next set of qualifications to boost us up the salary rankings and self-aggrandizement which goes with pursuing success.

Being intelligent and hardworking isn’t everything. Your excellent academic achievements show that you’re capable of logical thinking, understanding concepts, and are equipped with heaps of determination and grit when it comes to getting down to work.

Research indicates that intelligence is not an indicator of well-being. It seems that our obsessive pursuit of knowledge has been to the detriment of cultivating wisdom. That in turn has resulted in a diminished overall life experience.

So, what IS the difference between wisdom and intelligence. The dictionary says:

Wisdom: The ability to use your experience and knowledge in order to make sensible decisions and judgments.

Intelligence: The ability to think, reason, and understand instead of doing things automatically or by instinct.

The key difference would seem to be that wisdom uses the perspective gained from life experiences, whereas intelligence is down to the acquisition of empirical facts and knowledge.

Applying the nature/nurture debate is another way to distinguish between the two:

Intelligence is generally accepted as being something you are born with to some degree (although it also requires nurturing to fulfil its potential).

Wisdom, on the other hand, is not something innate, needing time and experience as well as observation and contemplation to develop and ultimately blossom.

Another way to discern a difference is to say that intelligence is knowing how to do something; wisdom is knowing if and/or when one should do it.

Intelligence may mean knowing how to hack into your work’s computer network, but wisdom is understanding that that is probably a bad idea!

What does it mean to be wise?

Unsurprisingly, the list of quotes on the subject of wisdom is long and enlightening. Here are just a few:

Pierre Abelard: “The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question and by seeking we may come upon the truth.”

Albert Einstein: “Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”

Marilyn vos Savant: “To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

Socrates: “The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing.”

Benjamin Franklin: “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.”

Confucius: “To know what you know and to know what you don’t know. That is real wisdom.”

There’s a common theme running through these wise words and that is humility, a somewhat alien quality in our society right now, where trumpet-blowing is what it’s all about.

(Adapted from The Conversation: (https://theconversation.com)