This morning, my eldest daughter – 10 years old – did indeed win four tickets to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II this weekend. But that is not the exciting part. The exciting part is that she got on the radio (KISS FM in Ottawa). For the second time. And this time she got to answer the question. And she got it right.
Yesterday, she was so excited to be “caller number three”, and waited in anticipation as Caller Number One (a 12-year old girl) was given an impossible question to answer. I mean, who knows off the top of their head the maximum speed of a Firebolt 2000 (Did I even get the right model number?)?
And then as Caller Number Two – a full-grown man – was given a no-way-you-can-miss, easy-peasy question. No, Harry did not get his scar falling off a bike or bumping into a wall at Hogwarts, two of the throw-away choices he was given. And my daughter was naturally devastated when she did not even get the chance to try her hand at the question.
Well, today she had the radio station’s number on speed dial on her mother’s phone, and they kept calling and calling and calling and … “Hello, you are Caller Number One. Who am I speaking to?”
Woo-hoo!
She answered the question correctly and won four tickets to see the show.
But it is not the tickets that is the best part – we would go see the movie anyway. It was the chance to participate – the excitement of making it onto the show. And, of course, answering the trivia question correctly.
By the way, the question was “Who was Harry Potter’s Herbology Teacher?”
Compromise: The art of dividing the pie in such proportions that everybody believes he scored the biggest slice.
Diplomacy: The art of making other people believing that it is their idea they are implementing for you.
So much in life depends on how other people perceive their ownership of an issue, event or process. Make the other person feel ownership, and they’ll walk over hot coals for you.
Which is best to have? What is the difference between them, anyway?
Knowledge is simple. It is about facts and information, just observing what they are.
Understanding is a little deeper – it is about realizing what the information (the knowledge) means.
Wisdom is deeper still. It is like understanding the understanding – how you should react to or feel about the information, now that you understand it.
EXAMPLE:
Knowledge: The government is creating seven new programs this year.
Understanding: Either the government will dip into my pockets now to pay for these new programs, or it will add to the national debt so that many years from now it won’t bother dipping into my pockets – it will just take my pants away.
Wisdom: I should fight the new government programs. Or, I should live it up while I can, while I still have my pants. Or, I should seek how I can milk these programs to get my money back and earn interest so that one day (when my pants are taken away) I can buy them back.
Which brings me to what inspired this blog post…a quote from Malcolm Gladwell.
Since my brain really only works in the morning, I try to keep that time free for writing and thinking and don’t read any media at all until lunchtime, when I treat myself to The New York Times–the paper edition. At this point, I realize, I am almost a full 24 hours behind the news cycle. Is this is a problem? I have no idea. My brother, who is a teacher, always says that we place too much emphasis on the speed of knowledge acquistion, and not the quality of knowledge acquistion: I guess that means that the fact that I am still on Monday, when everyone else is on Tuesday, is okay.
These days, people rush to get the latest information. They grab the knowledge. But do they take the time to understand? Or even more time to gain wisdom from it? No, they are on to the next piece of information.
Once upon a time we revered our elders for their wisdom. Now we tend to mock them for being behind the times. My parents can’t use computers or any of the new-fangled gadgets. They don’t have the information-overload that so impresses us in today’s “whiz kids”.
But is knowledge alone worth very much? I think most people will agree that there is a hierarchy where wisdom is at the top, then understanding and finally knowledge (OK, finally would be ignorance). But how important is it to seek wisdom, or is knowledge “good enough”?
This was passed on to me by my sister-in-law. So much of it is just so true, great life lessons even for those of us who remember our school days as ancient history.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about eleven (11) things they did not and will not learn in school.
Rule 1 : Life is not fair – get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: They called it opportunity.
Rule 6 : If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were
So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room..
Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. *This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. *Do that on your own time.
Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one..
I’ll spare you the long-winded intro today. This is a short message by the former CEO of Coca Cola very inspirational, that a friend shared with me a while back. Take a moment to reflect on it, and hopefully your day will be a little more valuable afterward.
Not just a big LOL moment, but words of extreme wisdom. If you are feeling bored, it is because you are not giving yourself a challenge. It’s time to decide how best to unbore yourself. Nobody but you can stop boring you.
A father and his son, a young adult, were driving to the cottage. The father was worried, because his son had fallen into companionship with people who might lead him astray, and he was trying to help his son see that it was time for him to take his life a little more seriously.
“Aw, dad, I know you mean well, and I know I’m not really doing you proud, but I like to party. I’ll get on the right track some day. I don’t need to worry.”
They drove a little further, when suddenly the son said, “Hey dad, that was the turnoff for the cottage. You missed the turnoff.”
“I know,” said the father. “I think I’ll just keep driving this way for a while. I can always go back later to take the right road.”
A few more minutes – and a couple turnoffs – passed. The son began to think of the swimming he would miss if they arrived too late. “Dad, the farther you go down this road, the longer it will take to get back.”
The father replied, “That’s true. The further you go down the wrong track, the harder it is to get back. So when were you thinking of turning your life around to head down the right track?”
Where do you want to go? What do you want out of life? Most importantly, what are you waiting for?
Your neighbor’s vision is as true for him as your own vision is true for you.”
Miguel de Unamuno makes us think a bit about our natural self-righteousness. We tend to think that our visions are “truth”.
Truth is that when a rock hits your head, the skull cracks open. Vision is that hitting a rock against a head is wrong, because it is killing.
Yes, read that again. That is vision, not truth. In fact, most people accept that killing is right in some instances. Such as killing fellow creatures to eat them. Or killing tyrants who torture or kill others. We kill in war and sometimes as punishment. Some people agree with these actions; some disagree. That is because people have different visions.
We don’t have to agree with other people’s visions, but if we want to get along without a whole lot more killing, it sure would help if we respected other people’s visions a little more than we do now.
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Yesterday, she was so excited to be “caller number three”, and waited in anticipation as Caller Number One (a 12-year old girl) was given an impossible question to answer. I mean, who knows off the top of their head the maximum speed of a Firebolt 2000 (Did I even get the right model number?)? 
