Everything I Need to Know about Life, I Learned…

The books with the template of learning everything in one place are abundant. Everything I need to know about life, I learned from kindergarten, a children's book, other women, Peanuts, Mickey Rourke movies, my dog, television, monopoly, my Jack Russell, cartoons, a chick flick, Sunday school, my puppy, little league, boy scouts, my garden, in the college stall, Barack Obama, at home, a race car, the Marines, Jerry Springs, first grade, Jesus, a horse, my kids, on the soccer field, at summer camp, in the bush, watching Star Trek. And they go one. Sports as well as my garden taught me everything about sales, Dr. Seuss taught me everything about presidents, the Bible taught me success. McDonald's taught me business, the pages continue on the search engine for "everything I need to know about life, I learned".

 

And so Solomon teaches in Proverbs 8 the simplicity of wisdom. Truly it can be learned anywhere where one is willing to learn. Calling everyone, no one is excluded, regardless of whether or not they were fortunate to learn as a young child at the knees of wise and caring parents and grandparents (v.24). A most precious gem (v.10), available even to the foolish (v.5). Eternal (v.23) and omnipresent (v.27), all who follow wisdom are blessed by God (v.35).

 

Entering through all the senses (v.34) wisdom is the sound (v.24) base for both justice (v.8) and discernment (v.9), as well as discretionary decision making (v.12). It satisfies the heart's deep desires (v.10,17,20).

 

So there is no excuse. We all can learn wisdom from any area of life where we put our focus. Whether watching a tennis match or struggling through a communication challenge with child, colleague, whether in defeat or victory, whether rich or poor, wisdom is there available for anyone who will follow. I need not apologize to those who were not blessed with wise parents. The challenge it not in knowing what to do, it is in changing the habits that make it easy to do, routine, hard to forget. I wonder how many lives would be different if I truly believed this today.