Here’s Why Wisdom Doesn’t Always Come With Age:
I’m writing this at 10:37 P.M. on a Tuesday—meaning I’ve fallen deep, deep into a Quora rabbit-hole. Pretty typical for a weeknight.
Tonight, I’ve read answers about dark matter, societal plagues and how pictures don’t always speak louder than words. Per usual, I was enjoying my personal time consuming, reading, learning.
Until I saw an answer I vigorously disagreed with.
I’m usually not one to voice my opinion over the Internet when I disagree with something. Sure, in person I have no problem speaking my mind, but I find it a waste of time to respond to people who are most likely trying to provoke a response to begin with. Needless to say, I usually bite my tongue and keep scrolling.
For the sake of this article, I’m not going to get deep into context about what was debated. Just know that the person I was in disagreement with is much, much older than I am, and a teacher (or so it says on their profile), and that what they said was fueled by ignorance.
The interaction was brief—their answer was no more than a sentence, as was my comment in reply to their answer. It was their response, though, that prompted me to write the article you’re reading now.
Here’s what they said:
“You’re 23. Wow. Such wisdom.”
Immediately after, they barred me from responding.
As one could imagine, the sarcasm got under my skin quite a bit. Thousands of potential replies rushed to my head—some taking the higher road, while others, a shot below the belt.
Thank goodness I was blocked from responding. I’m glad I wasn’t given the opportunity to pursue the latter—not saying I would; I just realize that our best judgement is blurred when emotion is involved.
Since I could no longer have a back-and-forth with this person, I started to think about what they said…
Can a young person not be wise?
Does wisdom automatically come with age?
What is ‘wisdom’ anyway?
Here’s what I came up with:
Wisdom is knowledge through experience, not age.
Just because someone is older than you, doesn’t mean they’re wiser than you are. And for those who assume otherwise, you’ve already made clear the extent of your wisdom.
Now of course, the two are correlated. Experience inherently comes with age—people who have lived longer have had more ‘life experience.’
But wisdom isn’t an umbrella term for higher intelligence, like a lot of people assume it is.
And it doesn’t mean ‘all-knowing,’ like a lot of people assume as well.
Wisdom results from depth and breadth of experience over time.
Here is a very, very basic example of what I mean…
A farmer who has only cultivated tomatoes on the same plot of land will have endless wisdom on the matter through his years of experience in that field (pun intended)—but that doesn’t make him the world’s wisest farmer. Not by a long shot.The world’s wisest farmer might be much, much younger than the tomato farmer, but has experienced more in the sense that he has cultivated root vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, and has done so in different climates, different seasons, all around the world.
Sure the former is older, and has more experience in his niche, but all that makes him is a tomato expert. He can’t speak to farming as a whole in the same way the younger, more experienced farmer can.
Forget about age.
Age will not bring you wisdom if the majority of your experience through life is repetative, monotonous and virtually unchanging.
If you want to be wise, become a student of life, and learn as much as you can through experience.
