Fear and Wisdom

Does wisdom drive fear, or does fear drive wisdom? Do they even have a relationship at all?

We all have fears and those fears can lead us to analyze things a little more deeply. For instance, when I was growing up we lived in a very dangerous city and the ‘wisdom’ I got was a wisdom of security.

This was driven by the fear of crime, not many people I know would have the ‘wisdom’ to walk around their home first before entering it to see whether someone had entered before them and was waiting for them. Not many people I know would memorise everything in their garden, the positions of objects around their house and recognise if anyone had moved anything.

What about investing money? Has fear made you decide not to invest in something that later turned out to be a scam? I have found this to be the case in my own life. That searching for more information, doing background checks and online searches prior to committing to something financial, stands us all in good stead.

How about the wisdom of assessing the danger of being somewhere or walking down certain roads at certain times? It is a wisdom I have been grateful for, and it was essentially driven by a fear of being mugged and a motivation toward self preservation.

What about the phone call you receive from ‘your bank.’ I have a standard response even if the call seems legitimate. My response is as follows, ‘I am right in the middle of something, let me call you back. Can you leave me your number?’ Any hesitation and you know you have a scammer. Or ask for his name and position and tell him you will phone him back. You can also then just call your bank and make sure that he is, who he claimed to be.

Fear and wisdom have had a very close relationship throughout my life, and I have known foolishness when I have walked down paths of greed, or hedonism, the mindless pursuit of happiness is a trap that I have fallen into in my life and many of my friends have too.

Life is fun with impulsive spontaneity, but as the saying goes the payment for legitimate pleasure comes prior to the activity, whereas the payment for illegitimate pleasure is more costly and can haunt you long after the event.

Be very circumspect about the activities that you engage in, and with whom.

Seek counsel from those that have travelled the road or a similar path before. Life is too short to make all the mistakes yourself. Why not learn from others? The wisdom of those who have gone before is wise counsel, and this is something I seek prior to any major commitment.

Remain humble in all things, to guard against looking foolish and losing credibility. I recently watched a short video clip about the Hollywood stars that have lost it all. One thing that they all seemed to have in common was arrogance and overconfidence, and their fame and fortunes were fleeting. Coupled with their arrogance and pride was the mindless pursuit of pleasure, thinking that nothing was beyond their grasp.

Speak humbly and admit when you do not absolutely know about something, once you are on record stating something absolute and that does not come to be in this digital age, your credibility evaporates.

When we seek wisdom humbly, we gain discernment and with discernment comes protection and success over time. When we have discernment we can make the correct judgements, for instance where to invest, and why.

Where to live and why, deeper meaning comes through judgement and discernment, keep these close at hand. Discernment also informs discretion, which allows us to not to have to answer for brash and harsh words.

The greatest empires in history have crumbled when morality is lost, they crumble from within, when they lose sound judgement, and the pursuit of pleasure replaces the hard work and uplifting of their own citizenry that paved the way to their success.

Fear of the crumbling of the empire would have maintained their discernment and they would have judged correctly rather than being tempted to pursue pleasure mindlessly.

I am not saying that one cannot celebrate success. I say that too much celebration and lack of discernment has created many a downfall of powerful individuals and empires.

When we lack judgement, we make foolish decisions and lay waste to what we have built. When we are impulsive and emotions drive our decision making, we pay the price in stress and lack of sleep as we forever lament the day we decided without due process of thought and circumspection.

I have done this twice in my life, and both times it was with property investments. The first time, the timing was wrong, the second time the timing was right, but there were some legal challenges with the developer.

If I wasn’t so eager to add property to my investment portfolio, I would never have bought the investment property. I allowed emotion to cloud my judgement and wisdom and investigation did not lead me.

The lack of sleep and ill health that ensued after the second investment were not worth it. Greed was fueling my thinking rather than sober minded common sense.

One thing I learn’t from a successful businessman, is to ask questions and allow others to speak freely. The whole meeting I watched this man who asked my boss at the time questions, giving no information to us, but gleaning what he could from my loud mouth boss, who was happy to oblige with his own knowledge. The successful, wealthy man just quietly observed and listened and took notes. Asking open-ended questions about the industry and he made us feel rather important, by showing intrigue and interest in what my boss was saying.

We later realised that he had us up against competitors and had decided to go with the competitor having extracted the information out of us and our competitors no doubt.

My boss lacked discretion ad wisdom and so did I at the time, it was only later that I thought back to the meeting and realised that he told us absolutely nothing and allowed us to do all the talking.