Proverbs 14:8
If you have ever been around wise people,
they seem to have one thing in common: they don’t make hasty decisions. They
seem to think about life and the direction they want to take. They consider the
consequences of their actions carefully. They gather information and weigh the
options.
It is not that they can’t make rapid
decisions, but that their decisions don’t seem rushed. They have a pool of wise
decisions options always at their fingertips. They know what wise decisions
look like because they have experienced so many themselves. They can rapidly
eliminate foolish options.
By contrast the fool has seen so many bad decisions
that they look normal. When a good option comes to mind, if it does come to
mind, it seems so different that it just wouldn’t get chosen. They don’t know
what wisdom looks like. It is a foreign language, an unknown commodity.
We are so similar in so many ways. We like
the familiar. We generally don’t like to risk, to venture into the unknown,
unless of course we choose to step out. Then we go at it with gusto! We jump
out of airplanes, hang glide, jet sky, snow board, run marathons, and a
thousand other things that push the adrenaline into our systems.
Fools like being fooled, especially when
they are doing it to themselves! Wise folks don’t like any shade of folly. In
fact, wise people don’t even want tints of truth or falsehood. Wise people want
full fidelity. We want wisdom. We want it all the time.
There is also the difference in the pace at
which decisions are made. Fools seem to rush into things. They often don’t take
time to consider the consequences. Impulse buyers fall into this category. So do
people who always need the latest gadgets, even though the ones they have now
work perfectly fine.
One other thing about fools: they are seldom
satisfied. Because they don’t think about their decisions, they flit from one
thing to another hoping the next thing will bring them satisfaction. And of
course it doesn’t.