The Lyrics Of Life - Grasshopper

I was listening to a New Year’s countdown show on satellite radio over the weekend and heard a Bob Dylan song sung by the Byrds: “My Back Pages.” It contained lyrics I had never paid attention to before: “Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.”

The accepted norm seems to be the older we get, the stodgier we get. For the most part that’s probably pretty accurate, but the words of this song paint another picture.

 

For many of us, wisdom is a late bloomer. It just arrives one day from out of the blue and without much ado. Being set in your ways has been ascribed to people of a “certain age,” but it’s really a hallmark of youth. “Bull headed,” “Know everything,” “Got it all figured out,” come from the brashness of the young. Who hasn’t been in the “You can’t tell me anything” mindset at one time or another in their life?

 

As we age, if this brand of thinking is not outgrown, it morphs into, “I believe what I believe, don’t confuse me with the facts.” So, we started out inflexibly old and just got older . . . unless or until we find the fountain of youth: Wisdom.

 

Wisdom doesn’t come from a set of facts. In fact, it bypasses those building blocks and gives us the complete package all at once, wrapped up with a bow.

 

Wisdom arrives when we don’t know everything. Knowing everything leaves no room for wisdom to come through.

 

If your mind is jam packed with “the way it is,” you’ll have a hard time finding out it isn’t that way at all.

 

Wisdom shows us a different route – one where we transition from old to young and are not so quick to wag our tongue.

 

Wisdom begins with quieting our mind. Quiet is the passport to wisdom. It requires outgrowing the old “stuck in our own way” habit of knowing and primes the pump that keeps youthful insights flowing.

 

All the best,