New Year's Perspectives

We all know people that are intelligent, but cannot find their way out of a building. I have heard many, many people say of someone "they have no common sense". Intelligence is sometimes defined as the ability to acquire knowledge. Knowledge is really about facts and ideas that we acquire through study, research, investigation, observation, or experience. Wisdom is the ability to discern and judge which aspects of that knowledge are true, right, lasting, and applicable to your life and how to implement it.

Here are a few words of what I hope is knowledge tempered by wisdom:

1) Not everyone shares your beliefs or opinions.
2) There are over 7 billion people on this planet. That means there are probably well over a      million beliefs and/or opinions on almost everything.
3) Your beliefs and opinions do not make you right nor them wrong.
4) Others beliefs and opinions do not make them right nor you wrong.
5) Although there are absolutes in both "right" and "wrong" they are much less in number
    than we all imagine.
6) Neither tolerance nor acceptance is approval, nor does it need to be. 

A bit of commentary: Perspective and "common knowledge" is relevant to almost any belief or opinion. Remember it was just over sixty years ago that the "unbreakable" four minute mile was run by a human. Scientists, physicians, and other "experts" had expounded upon how this would never be achieved by a human as it was physically impossible. 

Speaking of "experts" that know better than we common folk, there have been people literally burned at the stake for saying the Earth revolved around the Sun. It was commonly accepted that the Earth was the center of the Universe for more than a millennium. For the same period of time it was "known" that disease was caused by miasma or "bad air". Sick people were bled to cure them as recently as the late 19th century.

As for more "modern" knowledge, how about these: You should not go swimming for thirty minutes after eating as you will cramp up and drown. We only use ten percent of our brains and if we could find a way to access it all we would be super-humans. You need to drink eight glasses of water a day to be healthy. How about the "fact" that the Great Wall of China is visible from space. All of these have been proven false. (if you were not aware of this, sorry - but it's true!)

For 2017 let's try to be tolerant. You do not have to approve or agree with what others believe, but try to accept it. Who knows, they may be proven right one day!

Happy New Year! May 2017 bring you all you need and at least a large portion of what you want!!