The Wisdom I Believe to Be

Wisdom is too broad a term to be defined in a specifically objective manner. Similar to terms such as love and happiness, it is much of a concept than a word to be identified. Due to many experiences of critical thinking, I have come up with the most personal definition of wisdom as the concept knowing how to act in the best way possible despite the conflicts brought about by personal and rational reasons. Wisdom is all about control. Being wise is having the ability to control one’s personal desire and interests to perform the best solutions possible.

I believe the most comparable definition of this is the view of Martin Luther King’s. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, he talks about the concept of justice and how people must act nonviolently to achieve it. He discourages people to resort to violence in terms of fighting for justice. “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored” (King, 2000, p. 64). His speech tells about how nonviolence can force the opposition to finally negotiate with the issue rather than fight it. Violence involves personal interests because most of the time it is one’s emotions that drives them to commit such acts. On the other hand, nonviolence is a form of controlling oneself; therefore, the performance of it shows the ability of that person to think in peace and negotiate without causing any more harm to others by means of physical battle.

Like love and happiness, wisdom is better explained subjectively than explicated by means of technical denotations from books. Together with Martin Luther King’s concept of wisdom and intelligence, we can come to a conclusion that wisdom requires patience. One must learn how to wait and how to assess a situation because impulsiveness would merely lead to more harm and failure.

Reference

• King, M.L. (2000). “Letter from Birmingham jail.” Why we can't wait. Ed.
• Jesse Jackson. Signet Classic. pp. 64-84.