Home | Questionnaire For ACT III | About Hardy Hasenfuss | Contact
Read more about:
About Hardy
FREE SEMINAR IN NEW LONDON
Hardy's Mission
It's Never Too Late...
Leaving a Legacy
Schedule of Events
Your Best Years
Your Wisdom Years

The Most Valuable Asset We Have
We humans have an incredible power to discern, to make wise choices, to use sound judgment, to be patient, to use discretion, to apply penetrating intelligence; to follow a sound course of action based on knowledge, on experience, on keen perception and on understanding. That is what makes us human. That is the definition of wisdom.

How do we acquire this wisdom? Through learning from others, from books, from our experiences, including our mistakes (especially!), through thinking, planning, calculating and strategizing, through using our cognitive intelligence.

There is another side to intelligence, often less recognized, often questioned, doubted and marginalized: the inner, innate intelligence. This is the wisdom we are born with, we can manifest through getting in touch with our feelings, letting our "gut" speak, the wisdom accessed by "intuiting." This intuitive wisdom becomes available to us by training our minds to be patient, to become still and to listen. In our fast-paced society, with the never-ending "noise" and hurry, the "gut-feel" wisdom is often suppressed and de-valued because it cannot be quantified and controlled as easily. While in our youngest years the innate wisdom plays a major role in our life compared to the little external wisdom we have acquired by that time, we begin to "lose" it during our formative, learning years, because the concentration then is on acquiring cognitive knowledge that can be immediately applied to specific situations (like our careers, our raising children, our specific roles in society). During this "learning" phase of our life we also miss many pieces of wisdom by being so much in a hurry, or so bull-headed that we fail to recognize the signals by the side of the road, we do not listen to pieces of wisdom offered to us freely. We typically look for quick and easy fixes, often at the expense of better, more valuable long-term solutions. We have not yet fully accepted the reminder: "Work smarter, not harder!"

As we emerge from the "householder" phase of life, the years of preoccupation with career building and family building, we are being primed to embrace a period of self-reflection as we reach mid-life. Our vision clears; we are beginning to see the bigger picture. We see connections that weren't so obvious before. With maturity, we begin to enter a world in which seasoned insights, values, and abilities play a greater role. Some of us are even beginning to examine the competitive, survival-of-the fittest models of Business and Government and ask if our future as a society might not also depend on "survival of the gentlest."

There is a quiet social revolution afoot, which is based on priorities distinctly different from the market-driven culture that has dominated American life since the Industrial Revolution. The values of authenticity at home, in the stores, at work, and in politics, the big picture vision in news stories (in contrast to the 30-second news blips) are being embraced by as many as 25% of our population, according to recent studies.

Who is the most appropriate, best equipped in our society to lead, even drive this revolution? We, in our mature years, in our wisdom years. What if we were to take on this mission seriously, with passion and energy.

What could be the results, the benefits for our society as a whole, and for us personally? Can we imagine what application of a more long-term approach to our economic, political, environmental issues would lead to? What if we were to see the connectedness of all human beings to the larger Universe? What if we took the mountain-top view of some of our challenges? What if we took the cooperative approach, instead of pursuing win-lose strategies? What if we acknowledged and valued our own wisdom and that of others, and brought it to bear in every relationship, in every confrontation? What if we responded with empathy, caring and seeking to fully understand the other, rather than building up our ego while denigrating the other?

This kind of approach and behavior takes wisdom and patience. In our later years we can afford this patience, as we have already won many battles, and winning the next one is not so important and pressing anymore. We can even afford to lose a few now, choosing the right ones, investing our energies more wisely, and achieving the best for all through a win-win approach.

The best news about our wisdom years is that they need not come to an end at any age. Our mind and our wisdom is usually the last one to go, so we can apply it whether we are in a wheel chair or are still able to run in a senior-marathon. Wisdom only gets better with age. But we must use it and apply it, if we are not to lose it. Wisdom is extremely valuable, probably the most valuable resource we as a society have, but it is worth anything only if it is applied.

Society in general, business, and the younger generation typically undervalue wisdom severely. Therefore we, in our wisdom years, must find ways to reverse that trend, showing and proving to those nay Sayers the value that's being lost if not applied. We must be wise in our ways of "educating" the younger generation about the value of wisdom, not pushing our agenda onto them; helping them to "discover" the benefits of wisdom instead.

Fortunately, many of us fifty and older have decided we will be the change we want to see in the world. Whatever calls to us; however we go about it; however long it takes to see positive results from our efforts, our numbers ensure we can be an unprecedented force for good.

by Hardy Hasenfuss at July 22, 2004
Life - ACT III • 158 Summt View Road, P.O. Box 1619 - New London, NH 03257-1619
Phone: 603.763.9770 • Fax: 603.507.8500 • Email: hardy@lifeact3.com