My 42nd birthday is approaching quickly. That’s 4+ decades of behaviors, instincts, ways of dealing with things that come up. For some things it takes four decades, for other things you learn real quick. For me, wisdom is one of those long journeys of understanding.
Wisdom doesn’t show up one day in the mail, easily openable and ready to use. Wisdom often comes to us through the things that interfere with our comfort – be it an untamed, untethered idea, the person who drives us bananas, or a sunset begging us to stop our productive rush, rush and just watch it.
Another way I like to approach it is in the moment I’m about to dismiss someone or something, I instead think: So you are my teacher today. What am I being asked to learn from you?
From ‘THE WISDOM OF THE THINGS WE DISMISS‘ by Caitie Whelan
My four year old MacBook Air was acting up recently. I got that spinning beachball while I was in the middle of some important work (so important I can’t remember what it was). I caught myself wanting to launch into the response that I’ve seemingly been programmed with since I was a young boy, even before we had personal computers.
A feeling of hopelessness, “why me?” This computer problem, in this split second, was bullshit. The worst thing ever. Not fair.
That happened in a second, and in the next second I flipped the script. I made myself laugh. I celebrated like I just scored my dream job, or a unexpected check showed up in the mail. I raised my arms, smiled, dug deep and laughed in the face of my “world ending” computer problems.
Yeah, weeks later my laptop is fine, the work got done, and no one died.
That day the spinning beach ball wasn’t my enemy, ruthlessly mocking me. It was my teacher, and I was the student.