Mindfulness is important for achieving wise outcomes according to wisdom scholar Patrick Williams, this month’s guest contributor.
Mindfulness Pathway – Taking it all inWhen John ‘Wacka’ Williams took his place in Parliament in 2008, he brought with him the wisdom coming from life’s ups-and-downs—something that’s missing in career politicians—and a determination to help others in need.
Senator John ‘Wacka’ WilliamsFor the first thirty-five years of her life Lyn White never gave a thought to animal welfare. She does now.
Lyn White – animal welfare activistWe have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.
-Albert Einstein
Lyn had always been an animal lover—at least of companion animals. Beyond that, growing up in Adelaide, South Australia, wild animals and farming animals didn’t figure in her life much at all. This was about to change.Continue reading
The story of Florence Nightingale’s life is relevant today for men and women who aspire to lead society into a better future. Having been born into wealth she could have followed her obvious destiny to lead a life of luxury and comfort in Victorian England. Instead she chose to use her considerable talents and resourcefulness to bring about lasting change in the world. In this way she is a model of an I Can, I Do leader who inspires We Can, We Do followers.
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) [1]There is now a need for wisdom in solving world problems like no other time in our history. Can-Do Wisdom is an easy to understand, holistic framework for changing yourself and for changing the world.Continue reading
The first inkling that Anthony and Christine Foster’s daughter, Emma, might have been a victim of child sexual abuse came after years of Emma’s unexplained psychological issues and self-destructive behaviour had been occurring. It was in February 1996 that Emma’s psychiatrist said to Chrissie, “She’s displaying all the symptoms of someone who has been sexually abused.”
How does one begin to pay homage to a warrior like John Boyd? He was a towering intellect who made unsurpassed contributions to the American art of war.
– General Charles C. Krulak, Commandant U.S. Marine Corps
In many ways Copthorne “Cop” Macdonald was ahead of his time and not just in wisdom. As a social experimenter, as an inventor, as an engineer, as an ecologist, as an independent scholar and as a philosopher he was out in the front row leading the way with the best of them. But his immature decisions at a young age could have easily resulted in a very different outcome.
Only within the last decade has this been possible to measure the wisdom of a person, largely due to the work done by Professor Monika Ardelt. This essay is a brief account of her work in the development of a wisdom scoring model that you can use to find out your own wisdom score. It concludes with her suggestions on how to become wise.
We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, and effort which no one can spare us.
— Marcel Proust
The book she stumbled across in 1990 was a recently published softcover volume that could easily get lost in the stack of books in the Davis Library at the University of North Carolina. In fact, the chance find of this book in the library would change her destiny.Continue reading
Let us not develop an education that creates in the mind of the student a hope of becoming rich and having the power to dominate [but one that forms] the lofty ideal of loving, of preparing oneself to serve and to give oneself to others.
– Archbishop Oscar Romero
