There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom.  Knowledge is learning about a specific event or history or a specific skill.  We learn how to tie our shoes (bad example from someone who can’t), learn how to do a job, learn how to navigate a new city, learn the rules of a new sport, learn what our friends like for their birthday or anything needed to live out the day.  We all need knowledge to live our lives.

Wisdom on the other hand is more universal.  Wisdom can be described as a life philosophy that can be used in most situations.  Wisdom can be used in decision making in relationships and any career.  Wisdom takes more discipline to implement and more maturity.

Wisdom has principles that people live by.  Principles are universal.  Learning wisdom and principles can make your life fulfilling.  It can also be a tool for understanding and gaining knowledge.

Throughout time, many philosophers including Epictetus, Seneca, and the other Stoics have provided wisdom that is almost timeless.  And let us not forget that there was a great twentieth philosopher who said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”  Of course, the name of that great philosopher is Iron Mike Tyson.

We can get wisdom in many places.  We can get wisdom in understanding history, reading philosophy, and talking to our elders.  Oftentimes, younger people don’t like wisdom because to admit that they need wisdom is to admit that they don’t know what they don’t know.

Another way to gain wisdom is to start living and listening to the world around us.  Get out of your own head.  The lessons of wisdom are repeated, but people are simply telling life what they want and complaining about menial stuff that doesn’t have an impact.  They don’t take the time to become wise.

I have been writing for about two decades and it always amazes me how every time I read something, I see a thought that mirrors something that I wrote about or was thinking about.  This simply means that wisdom can be repeated and people who seek answers to life’s questions come to relatively similar answers.

Next time, you are in a bind or you just want to move forward in life, go beyond knowledge and seek wisdom.  Read something that you wouldn’t have read.  Talk to someone who has been there and done that.  Get out of your own echo chamber