Are We Wise Enough?

Written By: Tanzeela Ahmed

One fine day, when I was getting ready for university, my three years old niece, Mahnoor was keenly observing me and then she patted my leg with her tiny hand to seize my attention.

I gazed at her and then she whispered...Phupho, girls don’t go school wearing lip color...

I busted out in laughter. I’m not a student, I’m a teacher. Moreover, I teach in university not in school. I exclaimed!

Mahnoor: Ohhh, Okay.  What about your students?  Do they bother you and don’t let other student study well? She anxiously inquired.

Me:  Yes a few of them are irksome and trouble makers.

Mahnoor: But why? Haven’t their parents taught them to study hard and behave well with teachers and elders? Well, there are some “Gandy bachay” in my school too, very disturbing and irritating… You see, her all sympathies were with me.

To my wonder, she got it very right. It was fairly an ordinary conversation. But let me admit that at the tender age of three, she managed to astonish me. If a three year old is reasonable enough to produce such logical argument, then why the grown up are not able to use their common sense well, understand basic concepts and practical implication of beliefs? 

General perception is “As we grow so do we get wiser”.  Level of wisdom is broadly linked with age.

When I was kid, growing up over night was ultimate wish and now the childhood is the time that I badly miss and so want to relive it. Wish I could have a time machine…  I guess, everyone out there can relate to it.  Anyways, by and large it is consider that being a kid or minor connote no mind-power...  A usual perception is that being a kid means a free license to break rules, do blunders, create mess and make wrong moves.

I can’t comprehend that why average Pakistani families discourage kids taking reasonable. In every family we can point out some wise kids and most of the time such kids are ridicule by their elders and are mock as “Chalako masi, Shana, Shokha, Chota Ustadd, Siyana etc etc. So we can say that culture is an evident factor that permits to learn wisdom faster or hinder it. Perhaps, the development of rationality and individual skills largely relies on our values and believes system.

Being wiser is not an option it’s mandatory. “Wisdom” is the divine excellence human beings are blessed with. The act of growing up actually let us observe more, understand more, encounter numerous situations and thus we draw conclusions and take decisions.

Knowledge grows as we grow…

Experience comes with age and so is knowledge. With the passage of time, people acquire knowledge, gain experience and it makes many of them perceive that now they are wise enough, but at times their own actions and reactions in peculiar circumstances are enough to prove them imprudent.

Our actions / deeds make us look wiser or foolish

My observation is that the majority of people relate education and degrees with the level of wisdom. It’s true in many aspects but not legitimate all the times. This world is full of wiser people who have barely attended school but their approach towards life and their actions & contentment is good enough to prove that.

“Wisdom doesn’t need any credential”

A degree can’t buy well manners, Knowledge, wisdom, experience and ability to stand exceptional.  Degree is a piece of paper and one has to earn and justify it.

Scientific researches depict that as we age our brains shrink in volume / weight, particularly in the frontal cortex. It has been widely found that cognitive functioning slows and memory decline also occurs with ageing.  Old people are less impulsive. So they take more time to think and react and it probably helps them to make wise decisions.

What makes difference is how we use our brain to understand, interpret and generate an opinion.  Yes, we do get wiser as we get older only if we are truly able to constantly learn, adapt, expand our vision and cope up with the ever arising challenges of growing age / life.

Let’s accept it as true that being wiser means possession of knowledge, experience, continuous learning and having the ability to produce good judgment in all practical matters.

“Use your brain well. Otherwise you will never get wiser even at 60...”