Our legacy of wisdom

Wisdom is sometimes just listening. It is sometimes teaching, learning, supporting, sharing and/or empathizing.  Wisdom is a grandparents gift to their grandchildren. Wisdom is worth sharing with those we love. God knows it is one of our grandparents rights since we have worked so hard for it.

It would be scary for those of us that are grandparents to put a price on the wisdom we have gained through the years. The blood, sweat and tears that has been invested in raising and nurturing our families  is commensurate with the wisdom we have garnered along the way. Oh, the good times were many and sweet but most wisdom comes from somewhere deeper in the soul and most of it is covered in some pretty unattractive wrapping. Not all, but most growth spurts are the product of us fearfully looking a situation in the eye and moving forward.

When I am presenting to smaller groups and we are talking about fear I ask them to  do an exercise that is simple but profound. My wife and I learned this during a self-esteem seminar we attended many years ago that was offered by Jack Canfield. This was prior to his huge success with the Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

The exercise goes as follows: sit in the lotus position (on floor, knees out to the side, ankles crossed in front and the backs of your wrists resting on each knee) and put your thumbs and index fingers together and chant the following mantra three times……Hmmmmmm, Oh what the heck, go ahead and do it anyway. Why are you smiling?

Back to our wisdom. Each generation has it’s own ingenuity and the progress that is made in the next generation is built on the back of that ingenuity. One of the times in our history that, out of necessity, produced a great deal of really smart ideas was WWII. As grandparents this era directly affected much of our lives during and in the years that followed the war. I once read a biography of John Kenneth Galbraith, America’s most famous economist.

One aspect of the book was based around how he devised the rationing system that got us through the war. The other day I ran across another great example as I was reading a friend’s blog about how tens of thousands of our airmen were ingeniously instructed on how to escape the Germans by use of Monopoly games.  Great story, check it out on his Attachment Parenting Blog.                                                                                                                      .

As grandparents we should be proud of the legacy of wisdom that comes with living through and shortly after this challenging time in our country. It is through these kinds of circumstances that we become who we are and telling these stories to our grandchildren adds value to the experiences we have lived and learned from.

No matter how you have come by your own wisdom celebrate and share it.

Please be well and happy.

NEIL