A few thoughts on personal growth

"Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold."  Proverbs 3:13-14

As I look back on my life to this point, I realize that I truly love to learn.  Many of you may know that I love to read.  I devour books like some people devour television shows or sports events.  If there is one thing that I probably have too much of, it is books. 

And yet, I don't read merely for the fun of it.  I read to learn.  But then, I even find myself taking the next step.  I try out the things that I read.  For example, I'm currently reading a book about communicating and connecting with people.  For me, it's not enough to just know those things, but I actually take one or two points and try them out.  Learning something new is fun.  Learning something, and then seeing it in practice, is even greater.

This, to me, is the difference between knowledge and wisdom.  Knowledge is a matter of simply knowing something.  Wisdom is taking that knowledge, putting it to use, and learning how it applies.  Sadly, I see many people who stop at the learning part.  They are really smart people, but what they know stays locked up in their heads.  They know lots of facts and probably would do well on an exam, but don't put it to practice in life to actually see what it looks like, or how it works.

All of this is not to pat myself on the back for taking the next step.  In fact, the way I see it, knowledge almost seems to demand the next step.  But it also doesn't stop there.  You learn, you try it out and put it into practice, and then you start to learn how it affects situations, or how it applies to different people, or how it works in one situation, but not in another.  That's when wisdom starts to grow.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the development of wisdom is not an easy process.  It takes learning, practicing, and then learning from the practice all over again.  I'm starting to learn more about these last two steps in my life, and what I have found is that it makes life a truly exciting experience.