Becoming a wise woman. How do you do that? Doesn’t it just happen as you get older? No! There is no magic. I know, and you do too, I’m sure, women who get older but never any smarter about life. They often repeat the same mistakes over and over, never seeming to learn anything from them. It’s like the woman who keeps choosing abusive men to date and/or marry. Albert Einstein, a fairly smart man, said, “Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.”
The steps to gaining wisdom are just four. First, action. You do something, go somewhere, meet someone, etc. Second, when you take action, you have an experience. Perhaps your new recipe turns out to be delicious, or you had a fun evening with a new date, for example. Many women get stuck here, taking the same action over and over, having the same experience over and over. Even if it’s a bad or unhealthy experience, they repeat it. They keep skipping the critical next step: reflection.
Reflection is when you ask yourself: What just happened? Was it good? Healthy? Did it enrich or diminish my quality of life? You evaluate your action and experience, ideally learning something from it. Perhaps you’ll decide, for example, “This man was rude to the waitress. He’s not the kind of person I want to be with.” True wisdom also changes the action you take in the future. If the man calls again, for instance, you’ll decline the invitation rather than get more involved with him.
Wisdom does neither you nor anyone else any good unless and until you let it guide your next actions. The steps are simple: Action – Experience – Reflection – Wisdom – Action informed by your new wisdom. You can become a wise woman.