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045 Considering wisdom
A weekly newsletter from BobBarnardnm.com
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Please share this with your friends so we can encourage others to consider wisdom.
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Thoughts on the intersection of Society/Culture, Productivity/You, and Wisdom/Knowledge.
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Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. Benjamin Franklin
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My WEEK
Last week I ended my vacation and returned from New Zealand. I had two days at home starting to recover from the 27 hours it took to get back, and then I went to Socorro for two days of meetings. I finally got home on Sunday. I am almost over all the travel and change in time zones. I had a great time helping my daughter on her farm and sightseeing while she held clinics in other towns.
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Considering Wisdom.
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No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Marcus Aurelius
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Marcus Aurelius calls us to task while living our lives. We are to be good no matter what anyone says or does. This goes against the fabric of my teachings in my youth. For example, while I attended a fundamental church, we still heard about the Old Testament position of an eye for an eye. And it also goes against the politics in this country today, where we don’t look for the good in someone else’s position because we know they are wrong since they disagree with us.
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So, what does the second part mean? No matter what, my task is to be good. Historically good and evil were thought to be black-and-white, either-or concepts. Today I think most of us would agree that we each have our internal measure and definition of good and evil, which are different. Most of us can agree that our task is to be good, but there is no standard definition of what good is.
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For me doing good means helping rather than harming others. It means being present and listening to what everyone tries to say and understand. It means being fully present. I try not to cause harm or upset others knowingly.
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We are admonished not to judge others because every person has value, and we seldom understand the full context of someone’s actions. But in this quote, Marcus Aurelius tells us to judge ourselves, which we can and should do. However, at the same time, we must be gentle with ourselves. We all make mistakes and must live with the consequences.
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1. What do you believe your charged to do?
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2. Can you do better than you have in the past?
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3. What do you consider good or it's opposite bad?
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- Add a question about doing good during your reflection and review time.
- List where you fell short of this standard and consider why.
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