In an echoing world, full of ‘what ifs’,

It’s easy to seek out guidance; wisdom even,

In the people around us.

Searching for limited answers to too many questions,

Asking those that breathe, blink, and feel as we do

Only because they hold a golden title for being “wise”.

What is wisdom?

What makes anyone wise?

The mere word has a meaning so commonly found in any dictionary

In any Google search.

Unfortunately, wisdom isn’t something you find in white-bearded man,

Meditating on top of a mountain.

Wisdom, comes from not knowing exactly where you are going in life

Attacked life regardless,

Living without regrets.

Moving forward without clinging on to the permanent past,

Caring about not missing any open doors

Bettering who you ever were before.

Wisdom is keeping the memories,

Cherishing them, learning from them

And not revolving your life around them.

Like Ellen Hopkins once said in Impulse:

“…My happiest memories have no place in the past;

They are those I have yet to create”

Memories are to reflect back on when in need of smile,

Or a reminder of a lesson,

While making more in the present life that is so slick and slippery

Limited and precious.

Wisdom, comes from the less pleasing parts of our lives,

From the darkness inside and out.

The considered failures, the questions on the exams

The sleepless nights counting ceiling cracks, rejection letters from schools,

Denied scholarship entries, broken hearts,

Slammed doors, ignored calls,

The distanced friends, the dried up paychecks,

The nights there was nothing to eat, the days parents yelled,

The ways we treated our inferiors and our equals…

The misfortunes life threw in our direction,

And being able to catch them and fling them right back and saying,

“Is that your best shot?”

Most importantly, wisdom is the ability to hold it all together,

In front of those that look to us for assurance.

To wake up in the morning,

Aged a day older but smiling, drinking a cup of coffee

With an attractive bed-head and crusty eyes

And a plan to make today count, through it all that has happened,

Will happen and yet to happen.

That; is what separates the wise from the common.