You might have more to say than you realize!
Why Would I Want to Share My Wisdom?
Sometimes things just happen for the oddest reasons! Earlier this year I was asked to present to the members of the Senior Resource Center (Senior Circle) at Phoenixville Hospital. This wasn’t so unusual… Dara and I have sponsored events and presented there many times. What was unusual this time was that they came to me with the topic: 6 Wise and Funny Lessons on Aging. As it turns out, someone else signed up to present this topic, but had an unexpected change of employment and had to back out. The event title was already publicized, so of course, I said, “Sure!” We decided to make this a heavy “audience participation” event and we presented it on two different occasions. You might say we "shared our wisdom!"
One of those 6 lessons was “Share your Memories.” As it turns out, our audience taught us that is often equivalent to sharing your wisdom! As we age, we might slow down in some ways, but often our wisdom level increases. In fact, the definition of wisdom is “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment.” The key is on experience! And what better way to share your wisdom than to pass your experience and knowledge on to others?
Each of our 6 lessons had an animal associated with it. Can you guess the animal for sharing your wisdom? Yes, you guessed it, the elephant! In fact, Scientists have found that older elephants are better at making crucial decisions, such as searching for food and protecting the herd from predators, because of their remarkable memory.
We also looked to some aging celebrities for their thoughts on sharing their wisdom. Kirk Douglas has said,
“My mother and father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn’t believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn’t believe that it was free.”
How Do I Share My Wisdom?
So, now that we’ve established the value in sharing, how do you go about doing that. Our audience gave us a few ideas:
- Scrapbooking: Create specialized photo and news clipping albums for a family member as a holiday or birthday gift. What a nice, personal way to be sharing your wisdom.
- Videos: Since many people now have a video camera in the palm of their hands (their cell phone) it’s quite easy to create videos sharing your wisdom, i.e. stories or experiences from your life. Sometimes these can even be turned into professional efforts. For example, see the video link at the bottom of our blog post, “Celebrating 100 years: The Life of Melville McKenney.”
- Story telling: If you have a particularly interesting story of history or local interest, libraries and historical societies often setup events for the public to share these stories to other interested parties.
- Blogging: With the ease of use of on-line technology today, nearly anyone with limited technical prowess can create a blog. Do you do something interesting? Have special expertise in an area? Get asked by your friends for guidance on certain topics? If so, you could blog: once, monthly, weekly, daily, annually, quarterly! You are reading this blog right now because you are looking for some bit of information that I am sharing. You, too, could be the one sharing your wisdom!
Of course, sometimes you want to keep it simple. Not interested in technology or videos? Maybe just writing some interesting things down for posterity is for you. Someone might even read it! But, you will definitely get the enjoyment and satisfaction of writing it!
But, what if you don’t even know where to start? There is a web site called the Legacy Project, which can help you get started. There are even lists of questions to ask yourself or a loved one to get the creative juices flowing!
So, what wisdom will you share today? Please feel free to comment or add your ideas below