Jan’s Musings: two sides to wisdom

Thomas Edison tried nearly 2000 times to develop the carbonized cotton thread In the incandescent light bulb.He said " I didn't fail, I found out 2000 ways how not to make a light bulb. "
Theres two sides to WISDOM. "Your wise sayings are knickknack wisdom, good for nothing but gathering dust." job 11-12

I Had a great revelation today when I was reading Job 11-12. For a long time I have been having some thoughts about how we, as humans can "block ourslves" off from letting new, fresh ideas into our lives. Often times this attitude comes from fear, a tired and worn out spirit, or an arrogant "know it all" attitude.
I love what Jobs friend Zophar says about WISDOM: it has two sides: the wisdom that comes AT you from the outside, and the wisdom that comes OUT of you from the inside.
My understanding... Be careful that you don't live thinking that you're all hyper wise because you read, listen to wise people and hang around successful people. It's one thing to be a "copy cat" - but there needs to come a time when YOUR wisdom button needs to be flipped to the ON position inside you.
Often times, people (myself included) tend to think that the truth and advice we are hearing is for someone else... We immediately think of someone we know that could do with the nugget of wisdom we just heard, forgetting the fact that we ourselves have not yet mastered the skill.
See, we grow up with certain understandings and beliefs that have been instilled in us through our upbringing, experiences we've had and people we've observed. Whether you know it or not you have a personal philosophy, a moral and ethical belief that makes you who you are. Most of what we learn this way is 95% thinking. We have to constantly and actively be reevaluating this personal belief system and shift it.
Here's a deeper issue, sometimes there are vows we have made to ourselves because of some kind of emotional pain that we have been through. For instance we "lock people out" of our personal space, we "cut them off" as it were from ever being able to "hurt" us again. Or we have a humiliating or embarrassing experience and we make this unspoken vow that "I will never ever put myself in that position again as long as I live". Sometimes that is the very bow that hinders us from ever being "free" to start our lives over as it were; to give ourselves another chance to prove that we CAN do anything we set our minds to.
Final word. To wise up, Start with YOUR mind. Apply what you're learning to YOU. Your body, actions, understandings and everything else in life will follow.
(If you want to read the whole thing go to www.biblegateway.com - look on the menu on the left and click on... READING PLANS, then click on todays date : june 28. I like to read the daily reading in "The Message.")