Do you feel you are wiser, or less wise?

Question

Than you were when you were 30?

Some of the answers to my previous question caused me to wonder whether it's only me.

When I'm among people watching them interact I see the games they're playing with one another they don't even recognize. I see and know their lies, the emptiness of their values, often the heartaches they're setting themselves up for, even though they're strangers at the next table or talking to one another in a grocery line.

When I was 40 I easily saw how stupid I'd been at 30 and 20. At 20 I could look back and recognize my self-deception when I thought I was smart at 15.

It's easy to understand how any 30 year old thinks anyone younger, or older is mentally challenged.

But am I the only one who expects the older me one day to be the best qualified to judge my failings, rather than someone who is 30 today?

Answer 1

It seems to fluctuate with each passing day as the pieces of the puzzle slowly reshape themselves to fit where they once did not, or pop out of the places where I once thought they really belonged! It appears that life might really be just one big friggin' illusion after another!

Answer 2

I am much wiser, and understand much more than I did when i was in my thirties. I realize more what is important, and what is not, and that the more I learn, the more there is to know. I hope to hell I have learned from my mistakes, and I am mellower and much more experienced in life. When I look back, I know that what seemed important to me at 20, and at 30, and yes at 45 and even 50, seem frivolous now, and I wonder why I even cared about those things.

As for judging my younger self, well, I don't judge. What I have done in the past, has gone into making me what I am now, good or bad, and tho I recognize my mistakes, I have learned from the experiences and see no need to play judge and jury on myself.

I don't judge anyone else, either, that is not for me to do. I don't feel I have the right to criticize someone else's shortcomings and failures, I have enough of my own.

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Answer 3

We are the only ones who can truly judge our failings because we are the ones who lived them. We know the secrets about them that no one else knows. For instance. My first husband had a terrible temper and a lot of people wonder how I made it when I was married to him. He was at times a dangerous man but I was young and taunted him. I sometimes made things worse for my kids than they could have been if I had shut up and not wanted to argue. No one but you really knows how hard you sometimes tried and how little you sometimes didn't.
I have Fibromyalgia and so have a difficult time with memory and some days the brain just does not have what it takes and I suck at math but yes I am wiser and more aware and I have broadened my horizons.
There are a lot of shallow selfish people out there. Some of them will ''grow up'' and get real and some of them never will.
It is sad when we see someone making mistakes that we can now recognize so well. They wouldn't listen, we didn't. The best teacher unfortunately is life I guess.

Answer 4

Jack, there are times that I'm sure the older I get the less I know. All life to me is a matter of our own personal interpretation of things. I have discovered however, that we never know everything about any given situation. We might think we do, but sure enough something will pop up and you will go wow, or hum...

No one has the right to judge you, that is between you and your maker. As I say this I'm thinking of our court systems and how many mistakes they make daily in each of their tiny little building all over the country. But, we are our own worst critic's yes? I'm much harder on myself than other are or can be. Try to be easy on yourself, we are here to learn and grow and experience life in it's fullest. We will all make mistakes, and hopefully learn and grow from them!

Answer 5

In answer to your last question, you ARE the best to judge, until such time that your judgement becomes impaired by disease or senility.

I am much wiser and see all the things you described and just shake mee achin' head! LOL

But then they say wisdom is wasted on the young, for they would not 'see' it as it was meant to be.

SO does that mean it is WE who should pass it on? or not? If no one younger will listen, why bother? LOL

Seriously, my children listen and tell me as they each grow older how they now understand something I said or modeled long ago...so I guess that is how it works! THEY get older and wiser and start to understand, just as we do.

Answer 6

Older the wiser in most instances. I have met some people who never wise up though.
If you want to hear the wisdom of the ages visit a nursing home and sit and chat with some of the mentally alert patients, it's amazing.
Part of being wise is also learning to ignore what those less wise have to say about us.

Answer 7

At 60, I am paying for all the playing I did in my 20's,30's and 40s. I was a slow learner, and am in a miserable pain full existence now.

Answer 8

I'm wiser in that I've learned to be more tolerant, and more forgiving, and to keep my mouth shut and not feel that I have to always be right, or know more than everybody else. I'm still a work in progress and hope to keep learning something every day (like how to check my grand's 10th grade algebra)

Answer 9

Every day, in every way, we get better and better.
Its so true when they say, youth is wasted on the young.
And that they should all leave home while they have all the answers!

I look at photographs of myself as a teenager, and think about my attitudes and various actions, nothing bad mind, but I do question, whhhoooo issss sssshhhheeeee????

Answer 10

Everyday is a learning experience in life ,if you choose to learn from them.I definitely would say i am much wiser! The older you get the wiser you get,so its been said!!!