Challenging our Assumptions

Dancing With Wisdom

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Such is a famous English saying. The problem is it assumes much which is frankly wrong.

Think of a fish (hang in with me, this is going somewhere!) If you ask a fish to describe the water it is swimming in, and if it could answer, it would not know what to say because the water is all it knows about its existence. The water just is and naturally cannot be questioned as it is assumed to be always there.

Now, surprise surprise, we are not fish (another profound thought!) But we also make assumptions about life and our environment that we don’t naturally question.

We have assumptions about ourselves and life that we take for granted as they are so much a part of the world around us. They can hold us back from discovering the wisdom we are called to live by.

By understanding and challenging those assumptions we can learn to begin to dance with wisdom in spite of all the complexity or confusion we commonly see around us.

In this podcast conversation with my cohost Elliott Frisby we discuss three common myths when it comes to wisdom:

1. Wisdom is the same as common sense.
2. Wisdom comes with age and time
3. If I live with wisdom then everything in my life will naturally go well and according to my plans and ideas.

Such assumptions can seriously hold us back from living life with the purpose and fulfilment we were intended for. We need wisdom to appropriately handle and overcome the irritations and frustrations of life; the intractable problems we face in getting things done and most importantly to face the major devastations we will ultimately face in terms of death and other disasters.

A sobering example of that is King Solomon who lived in the 10th century BC and was described as the richest and wisest man of his time. Yet in spite of this Solomon made some significant misjudgements and mistakes in his own life that lead to a tragic overall evaluation by his Creator.

After you have listened to the podcast can you think of any other assumptions that may hold us back from dancing with wisdom?

Life’s challenges can diminish, define or develop you. Which will it be? The choice is yours through wisdom. Make sure you choose the right one.

The link to our 27 minute conversation is below.

https://youtu.be/VbI8XwCw5m0