I have often wondered if people who I consider wise, have a similar self perception? I expect that if you asked them, they would say no. Whether be out of modesty or honest belief, we would never know.

There are times when I might consider myself "wise", such as when I am working through an issue or guiding a process with someone else or retrospectively see a decision I made as being precisely on. I will sometimes leave a meeting and think, "was that me in there?" or get a compliment on some really "grown up" thing that I did or said. There are times when just from life experience I know how to adroitly manage a situation. But then there are the times I hesitated when I shouldn't have, was naive or totally unsure of myself or when regretfully, I was also a complete ass.

I used the term grown up earlier because I think of myself as much younger that what the calendar reports back to me. I have heard others say that as well, but when I am sometimes around people my own age or sometimes younger, they just seem to act and look so old. But that's another topic.

I see myself as accumulating experience and learning from my ignorance or bad choices and often thinking of how to use this going forward. I also find that I learn so much from the way others act. Out of a sense of entitlement or perhaps insecurity or they are just clueless, but they act like absolute asses in the way they treat people, handle a problem or just behave (on not) in general.

I have a hard time not thinking back and wondering, wouldn't it have been great to have the perspective I have now at the time when I did something out of fear, anger, worry; when I did something that ended up hurting someone or myself or set in motion a series of events that continues. I guess it is better to have this awareness at the age I am than to be a 90 and have even more regret and hopefully it will reduce the times I act the ass that I will later regret.

One of the most important things I think I have learned is to not always react, to let thing settle a bit before responding or not or to disagree. Even more important I am learning to be ok with that.

So I wonder, do we ever get to the point in life when we are wise enough and comfortable enough that this is second nature? I'll guess I'll wait and see and in the meantime keep plugging.



note: I realized when I wrote this that the word "ass" keept coming up and even through use of a thesaurus I just couldn't find a word that encapsulated the feeling.