Blindspot!
From Issue: 682 [Read full issue]
Finding Wisdom
We know that information is not wisdom. We also know that knowledge is not wisdom. As your knowledge increases, your ignorance becomes larger, or at least your awareness of your ignorance becomes larger. So the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. What if you were trying to serve purposes greater than your knowledge - greater than your comfort zone? This would create genuine humility and a desire to draw upon help from others - from a partnership or team. Successfully working with others makes one's knowledge and abilities productive and necessitates the creation of a complementary team of people who possess knowledge and abilities that can compensate for and make irrelevant one's individual ignorance and weaknesses. When information and knowledge are impregnated with worthy purposes and principles, you have wisdom.
Another way of putting this would be that wisdom is the child of integrity - being integrated around principles. And integrity is the child of humility and courage. In fact you could say that humility is the mother of all the virtues because humility acknowledges that there are natural laws or principles that govern the universe. They are in charge. We are not. Pride teaches us that we are in charge. Humility teaches us to understand and live by principles, because they ultimately govern the consequences of our actions. If humility is the mother, courage is the father of wisdom. Because to truly live by these principles when they are contrary to social mores, norms and values takes enormous courage.
Compiled From:
"The 8th Habit" - Stephen R. Covey, pp. 295-297