Another 30 Days of Wisdom. Certainty?

Nathan: 00:00

A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, To understand a proverb and an enigma, The words of the wise and their riddles.

Solomon. Proverbs 1:5-6. Hi, it’s Nathan, and this is day 3 of ANOTHER 30 Days of Wisdom. According to the writer, a person of understanding is one who seeks out wise counsel. This means that understanding means having a healthy sense of self-doubt, an assumption that there’s more to learn or better solutions than the ones I may currently hold. Genuine understanding requires humility. The heady certainty that seems to be the benchmark of smarts and wisdom, is itself folly. While on one hand a sense of certainty has its place, on the other, it is held gently, recognizing one’s own frailty and limitations. It doesn’t meant that everything in life is held tentatively, but that much of it is. Understanding is the humility to recognize that my view of the world is necessarily limited and narrow—and that others have wisdom, too, which is of great value to me. Rather than keeping me safe and grounded, an unquestioning sense of certainty may reveal great pride. It may also reveal great fear—for which declarations of certainty are simply a cover-up. Or may it reveals deep ignorance. Reality is, unquestioning certainty generally places an individual at greater risk of being tricked or believing lies—because they have closed their minds to discovery.