Education & Wisdom

“If we can develop the ability to be aware of the present moment, we can use the past as a guide for ordering our actions in the future, so that we may attain our goal”.

-S.N. Goenka

“The key to good decision making is not knowledge.  It is understanding.  We are swimming in the former.  We are desperately lacking in the latter”.

-Malcolm Gladwell

“Education gives you knowledge.  Life gives you wisdom”.

-Michael Brown

If you do not learn from you mistakes, you are doomed to repeat them.  Typically we start acquiring knowledge when we are young.  It begins as soon as we are born.  However, the accumulation of knowledge without the application of it is kind of worthless.  We use knowledge to make decisions.  We gain experience from the decisions we make.  They are either well informed and good decisions or they are perhaps uninformed and not so good decisions.  In the modern world, especially since the creation of the internet, we have more access to  more information than any previous generation.  Unfortunately, not all the information we can access is true or good.  The internet is full of false and misleading information.  I know this because Abraham Lincoln said this was true.  I am a strong advocate of education.  I believe a lack of education separates people as much as race, gender, sexual preference, etc.  Even among the educated there is often a disagreement about what is true and what is not.  It is very challenging in today’s world to know what is true and what is untrue.  The internet and other sources are full of “fake news” and “alternate facts”.  I think the Buddha has some good advice when he says, “Believe what you experience”’.  I work in a diverse environment and I interact with different kinds of people.  Except in rare situations I find everyone to generally be good, caring, and more like me than not.  In my long life the only kind of persons I have not liked are individuals who are jerks.  A jerk is a jerk.  Most people can easily identify and describe people who are jerks.  If we are going to deport anyone, let’s deport all the jerks, put them on an island, and let karma do the rest.