Striving Towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

I’ve learned that I can’t figure out what my wisdom is trying to tell me through intelligence or memory. Instead, I need to trust a quiet inner voice that knows what I need to know. When it doesn’t know an answer, it knows that it doesn’t know.

Wisdom is my sense of knowing – an intuitive feeling I’ve experienced many times. Like when I learned to drive a car and can get behind the wheel after months or years and drive perfectly without having to relearn. Wisdom is that internal knowing that operates without conscious effort.

I’ve discovered that wisdom exists in every aspect of my life. There are times when I simply know what’s right for me, or when I know I can do something. This is quite different from having to think and search for an answer. For instance, I don’t have to come up with reasons why I love an old friend – my sense of knowing tells me who to love and who to avoid. My intuitive sense knows what’s best for me, and my wisdom is far more powerful and all-knowing than my thinking mind.

Since my thoughts aren’t always reliable, which ones should I pay attention to and which should I dismiss? Very simply, my wisdom and sense of knowing will help me. When I’m in a bad mood and have a negative thought about someone, I dismiss it. By dismissing negative thoughts, I avoid having hundreds of additional negative thoughts that would lower my spirits and block my wisdom.

Wisdom is the quiet voice that speaks to me when I’m feeling good, when I’m happy, when I have my bearings. Wisdom never comes from negativity, nor can it exist when my mind is filled with negative thoughts. My wisdom comes from quieting down, from dismissing negative thoughts and listening to my inner knowing.

This process is always available when I quiet down and open up to it. My wisdom will always speak to me if one simple condition is met: dismiss all negative thoughts surrounding any issue and quiet down. The answer will be there.

As William James said, “Wisdom is seeing something in a non-habitual manner.” When I discover my wisdom, I free myself from fixed thinking patterns and can navigate toward a life of happiness and inner peace. My wisdom becomes the steering wheel that tells me when to move forward and when to step back, listen, and wait for an answer