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Wisdom

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Although both courage and wisdom are noble qualities that all of us strive to possess, courage is of little benefit to a person unless he also possesses the wisdom to put it to proper use. After all, how many times and in how many different ways have we been cautioned to think before we act - to look before we leap? Courage without the wisdom to guide it properly is like a car without a driver. It lacks direction, destination, and focus. It could even be considered very dangerous if it happens to be put into motion unattended. You could even argue that without wisdom, courage isn't really courage at all, because it really does start to look an awful lot like plain old foolhardiness when it's all by its lonesome. However, wisdom continues to be wisdom, and useful as such, with or without courage.

Life as we know it today also calls for wisdom more often and more fervently than it calls for courage. For instance, without wisdom, a person stands little chance of ever being a truly good parent. He not only needs to be able to see his own proper way forward when it comes to raising his children, but his children are depending on him to help fill their minds with much of the know-how and guidance they will need to make their own way in the world as well. Schooling can only teach you so much, after all. Wisdom is also positively necessary to succeed in the business world, to make sound decisions in everyday life, and to effectively and positively influence other people when needed. Of course, all of these things can sometimes require courage as well, but not to the extent or the frequency that they do wisdom.

It can also be said that if one already possesses wisdom, it is easier to also eventually attain courage as well. There is nothing that makes a person brave enough in time to learn to grab the bull by the horns quite like actually knowing what he's doing. If a person is wise, he automatically possesses the ability to eventually become anything else he would like to be as well if he chooses. However, I don't necessarily believe that courage naturally leads to wisdom in quite the same way. Foolish people, no matter how brave they are, often fail to value wisdom in quite the way that they should in the first place... and from what I've seen, they don't tend to survive well enough, or long enough, to ever learn otherwise.

Learn more about this author, Shannon Hilson.
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