Experience: The Bitter Road to Wisdom

When I was a young man, I went snake hunting while on a boating activity with a number of youth from my area. I ended up catching a snake that I intended to take home. In the process of preparing a milk carton to hold the snake without suffocating it, I accidentally stabbed myself in the hand with a large knife.

The injury required medical attention which I never got because the youth leaders were too busy boating to be bothered with taking me into town for emergency care. It took two days for the bleeding to stop completely. That accident was 29 years ago and I still regularly get muscle cramps in my right hand where the injury occurred.

You’re likely familiar with this statement attributed to Terry Pratchett.

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.

That day, 29 years ago, I learned a valuable lesson about how to properly handle knives.

Of course, it’s not fair to say that wisdom only comes from experience. Confucius¹ said:

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

I will also add, the third method is the most popular approach to wisdom. The notion that we have to suffer to learn is true for more circumstances than it needs to be.

Why is that?

Wisdom may not come from learning to ride a bike. Also, while it may be true that some people learn to ride a bike without falling over repeatedly, for most of us the pattern is the same: learn to balance and propel the bike forward, crashing many times in the process.

No amount of meditation or reflection will teach a person to ride a bike. The only way to imitate it is to do it. You can’t get on a bike and fake it. It comes only through inescapable personal experience. Personal experience will always be more visceral than meditation or imitation which makes it stickier. That is, our own personal experiences and the lessons we learn will almost always outweigh those of others.

As a father, I’ve successfully taught three of my children to ride a bike. They followed my instructions carefully and it didn’t take them long to learn how to ride without crashing. With another child, I failed. He was fearful and would intentionally (in my eyes) crash the bike anytime I let go.

I lost patience. Eventually, I yelled at him². Ultimately, it took one of his friends showing him how to do it and now he rides his bike more than any of my other kids.

Here’s what’s interesting. I can’t say that I gained any wisdom when I learned how to ride a bike. I did, however, gain wisdom in teaching my children how to ride. I learned what works and what doesn’t. I learned how to adapt that teaching to individual needs. I also drew from my personal experience to enhance theirs.

In practical terms, there is no limit to experiences through which wisdom can be gained. You might categorize many of those experiences on the “undesirable” side of the experiential spectrum. Being open to the truth that we can learn from all experiences adds purpose to all experience no matter how wonderful or terrible.

A little contemplation will remind you or help you realize that wisdom can be gained along the entire spectrum of experiences. You just have to be willing to learn. As Thomas Oppong said recently, “openness to wide and deep experiences outside your comfort zone will change your life.”

There’s the key: openness. Experience can be a bitter road, particularly when what you experience is a consequence of another’s poor choices. But, openness to the possibility of learning something means you didn’t suffer in vain.

¹Confucius said a lot of really great things. He’s also credited with a lot of other great things that were said, just not by him.

²For the record, that is one of the least effective ways to teach someone to do something you expect them to enjoy doing later on.