Insight

Growing up, I was always the quiet, observant type. I cared more about understanding things than experiencing them. I’m still like that. I love being in the room, but I don’t always feel the need to participate. I don’t know why, I just don’t. I’m content to get to know everyone from a distance. If they know anything about me, it’s that I’m the quiet kid. I guess now people are getting to know me through this blog, but when I’m at the party, I’m content to simply observe. 

For a while, I used to think it was a fear thing. Although I have a lot of work to do surrounding fear, I have started to get the feeling that there’s more to it than that. I started reading this book called “The Divine Mentor” by Wayne Cordiero. In it, he talks about how foresight is a good thing. He compares it to running into a wall and breaking your nose. You can only break your nose so many times before you quit running altogether. Your will and body will eventually give out. As funny as this may sound, I had never thought of it like that. Growing up, everyone always told me “you can’t predict the future, so you may as well just get up and go for it!” 

It may be true that no way of doing things will ever be 100% accurate, but I have always had the feeling that I could spot a terrible decision before someone was about to make it. I do think that you can avoid a lot of bad decisions if you pay attention. You can avoid rejection if you learn to pay attention, you can assess your odds of making the basketball team if you consider the factors at play. You can figure these things out if you just pay a little attention. There will always be one or two exceptions, but if you are looking hard enough, you can avoid a lot of nose-breaking.

Part of the problem, as well, is that we don’t employ the service of other nose-breakers. One man’s insight can only go so far and he will probably continue to make mistakes because he is using his surroundings as his teacher. But if you bring in a fellow mistake-maker and have them tell you about their mistakes, you will begin to live better. You will see where they failed and avoid doing that. Sure, you will still need someone to guide you forward, but everyone can give you their list of traps to avoid and things not to do. 

Once again, this isn’t a 100% surefire guarantee, you will still make a few mistakes of your own. But I think it’s a lot more effective than recklessly charging into every situation you find. Yes, it will never be perfect and we still need to cut ourselves some slack when things don’t turn out right, but I think insight is a gift that is becoming more and more undervalued as time passes. These days we practically don’t know what a mistake is! We try to justify everything as right. A mistake is still a mistake. A bad outcome is still a bad outcome, but we coat it with truckloads of sugar and try to make everything wonderful when deep down, it’s still a failure. It still hurts to fall. It’s still frustrating to get it wrong, so why not admit that and try to do it just a smidge less? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind failing a little less from time to time, wouldn’t you?

But ranting aside, it’s a wonderful thing to be able to take in your surroundings. I have avoided more than a few bad decisions because it felt like deja vu. I made the right choices with friends because I had a good understanding of what was going on. “But how do you really know?” I get asked a lot. I used to ask myself this as well. I used to jot down everything at play, and what I thought was going to happen. I did this in my own life a few times and the lives of my friends a few others. In both cases, I wound up being right the vast majority of the time. Not because I am a mystical future-telling genie, but because I knew who I was dealing with and how they were most likely to respond to certain things. 

This is also how I give gifts: I know people. I don’t need a list of things they want, I can come up with something on my own. Even when I don’t have an idea of what to get them, I know where I should look (and, if all else fails, Barnes and Noble has just about everything. You can’t go wrong by starting there.) And, not to brag, but the gifts I wind up giving wind up doing pretty well. It takes a little creativity, a little insight, and a bunch of time spent hunting, but it’s one of the perks of having excellent insight. It really does take you places. 

I like to say “wisdom can be found in anything.” Once you start looking, you find it everywhere. It’s why I like doing my movie thoughts so much: you can find something profound to say from movies as silly as “migration,” and “The Beekeeper.” I believe anyone can start gaining wisdom. You just need to listen to your surroundings. Most decisions don’t need to be made on the spot. Many times, we have the time to slow down and process things for a second. It also serves as a great hobby. This is just one more reason to put down the phone and do, well, anything else! I have started to stare off into space and think about things instead of scrolling through the endless void of YouTube. It has done wonders for me and has helped me to bring my stress levels down. 

I hope you can begin to gain insight. It’s an exciting thing when you start to see more of the world around you. You can elevate your life to new heights because you can pick the right paths before you smash your nose into a hundred and one walls. You can avoid some costly mistakes and keep from unnecessary setbacks. All in all, it’s a wonderful way to live life and I hope I can learn to share it so that you can learn it too.

Until next time

May Peace be your guide.