I would rather die wise than die rich, and I would rather pass wisdom than riches to my children. Wisdom and self-discipline are the two necessary foci for a well-lived life.
The first step to wisdom is an attitude of humility. It is natural for us to assume that the culture we were born into is the best in the world--our nation, our religion, our political party, our ways of thinking and doing things. To acquire wisdom, we first need to cultivate the attitude that we need to learn from others.
The great early-twentieth-century essayist H.L. Mencken often expressed views challenging majority thinking. When he received letters of criticism, he always sent back a postcard containing only these four words: "You may be right."
Wisdom cannot develop until we first develop the attitude, "I may be wrong" and "You may be right." I consciously go out of my way in life to hear other people's ideas. When Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons have knocked on my door, I have let them in and listened...and learned. This attitude doesn't mean that everyone who knocks on the door is right. It only means that we can't begin to evaluate our ideas until we have listened to the ideas of others and worked hard at answering the questions they pose about what we believe.
The second step to wisdom is active pursuit of it. We pursue it first by learning to ask questions about everything we believe and everything we don't understand and everything we think we understand. Too often the path to wisdom is lost because we haven't begun by asking enough questions. We assume we already know.
When we have learned to ask questions, we can then pursue wisdom by listening. We have to listen carefully to other people. We have to listen to nature. We have to listen to the lessons of the past.
We must also pursue wisdom through reading and active scholarship, diligently researching answers to important questions about what life means and how we should live it. "Why?" Unless we have a good answer to that question for every belief we hold dear, we are living superficially. I remember when I was just a teenager once writing a list of "Things to do this summer." On the list was "Research why I believe....," and I named a specific doctrine that I had been taught but that I could not defend because I believed it only because I had been taught it. When I had finished researching it thoroughly, I had found it untenable. I found that what I had believed was not supportable when other points of view were considered.
Questioning is first. Listening and reading are the input skills. The central skill, then, is thinking. Long, serious periods of reflective thought and analysis are essential for wisdom. The license plate on my car says "THK 4 YSF." That expression, "Think for yourself," sums up my desire to pursue and acquire wisdom. (I spent months coming up with the license plate expression that would sum up what was most important to my life.)
The final requirement of wisdom is to live it. Paul Kurtz has developed a philosophy he calls “Eupraxsophy”—from the Greek eu, meaning good, prax, meaning practical, and soph, meaning wisdom. Good, PRACTICAL wisdom is wisdom that affects every part of our lives. We need to live out practical wisdom in time management, money management, interpersonal relationships, and matters of personal self-discipline such as our eating and exercise habits.
If we have cultivated the input skills of listening and reading, and the central skill of thinking, then we are ready for the output skills of speaking and writing and living. Until we have established the foundation, we had better not construct the edifices of our lives.
I have often, often, often had to change my mind about things I once believed. However, many essentials of wise living are things we are taught from the time we are little: to respect other people, to demonstrate love in word and deed, to be peacemakers, to forgive, to seek truth and justice, to find joy in the simple beauties of life.
Religious dogmas often bog people down and result in judgmental attitudes we are often not even conscious of.
The result of wisdom is character, and it ends where it started….with humility.