I wrote in an email earlier today: Today’s prompt is to write about a wise decision made this year. #lolololololol
You know me–or you’re getting to know me–I don’t take a word like “wisdom” lightly. And that I ought to share something with you about a WISE DECISION THAT I MANAGED TO MAKE–I’m not going to pick just anything. I’m not just going to say, I decided to stop drinking my way through mornings! I’m not spending all my money on llama stickers anymore! I’m finally holding to my oft-recited motto, “Mayo is a side! Not a main! A side!”
People, I am so vexed about this post I am losing my mind.
Considerations:
- What makes a decision wise? And am I even writing about a wise decision, or just my wisest decision? A mildly idiotic decision by a Grade A Idiot might qualify as “wisest” even if relatively (broader scheme) “unwise.”
- I’m only 30. Am I allowed to claim wisdom? Am I able to claim wisdom or wise-ish-ness has originated from ME?? That seems braggy. But maybe I’m a braggart. I have a blog, after all. Talk about a prolonged selfie.
- Unwise things I have managed to do on the way to writing a post about wisdom:
- Pick several fights with my husband
- Be distracted at work
- Eat candy
- Complain
- Totter on the edge of a depressive episode
- Skip exercise–skip YOGA
The emperor is not wise, people. Not wise at all.
+++++
In 2013, I almost made a really, really, really bad decision. An unwise decision, by anyone’s standards of wisdom. And that I didn’t isn’t because I managed to seize Wisdom by her hair and pull her–that is to say, me–out of the bleakness–no. Not at all. I needed OUT and AWAY from my own head and latent un-wise-ability, and what I got–what I was blessed with–was a friend, a new best friend, coming along for me at the exact moment I needed her.
Is this noteworthy, in a conversation about wisdom? It is for me: sharing what I shared with my friend was a breaking of habit for me. I have become accustomed to dealing with these bleaker aspects of myself on my own–I have become habitually independent, to a fault. I hate to need. I’ve been told I have a fossilized heart.
Oh wait no, that was my friend Mattingly’s accusation after I said I didn’t really care about the fossil record. Different story. Back on track.
Wisdom: break your pattern.
Don’t stop being you–gosh, I’M not going to stop eating mayonnaise–but consider what might be gained when we respond to a situation–to ourselves!–slightly outside of the norm. Given that it’s not habitual, I have to believe there’s going to be something new there–and new can be good.
New saved me this year.
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This post is part of Think Kit by Smallbox.
Jackie Lutzke 
Doing the unexpected, on purpose, can change us dramatically.
Especially when we know our patterns are bad news.
Thanks for sharing, Jackie.
Don’t drag _me_ into this, lady! I just think it’s unwise to underestimate the miraculous wonderment that is the fossil record.
*drag, drag*
fossils are a drag. drag ’em in the dirt.
I love reading your posts!
Thank you! I love that you love reading them. 🙂
I think you accidentally alienated wisdom by speaking of it. Not to suggest that you aren’t wise, because you are. I think wisdom is information we don’t have to question or even be aware of. It’s automatic. That’s what makes it different than knowledge. Just by replying, I’ve alienated it.
But I like what you wrote!
OH CARP. I’ll let you say whatever you like because it means you read my post. I’ll ruminate on your thoughts and who knows, maybe there’ll be a Wisdom, Round 2 post called “We Dast Not Speak Its Name.” 🙂
BUT YOU ARE RIGHT–I don’t know that we really set out to “execute wisdom.” We just do it. But maybe on the way to becoming wise we have to DO and that’s where this post can be helpful. Who knows!