The most important thing in life

Probably the most significant question we can ask ourselves is what is the most important thing in life. The question has far reaching implications in that the answers (or lack of them) that we arrive at can determine the course of the rest of our lives.

Many would consider money or financial success as the most important factor in life.The high rate of suicide amongst lottery winners would contradict this. Others would search for fame, yet the list of famous people who have committed suicide or died from an overdose of drugs continues to grow.

Good health would be high on anyones priorities, and the presence of love in ones life is also of major importance.

I would propose that wisdom is the most important thing in life.The best definition of wisdom that I have read is “ the best means to achieve the best ends”.Wisdom is needed to achieve the best results in the myriad decisions we all need to make daily in our personal,financial,family,work,community lives.

Each one of us has a unique mindset or set of beliefs which is continuously changing and which we use to make decisions, each of which has significant roll on effect on how the rest of our lives turn out.These mindsets are determined by the unique environments we have grown up in, our age, our education and the cumulative impact that each life experience has had on us.

Our unique mindset is either working in our favour or working against us in each and every situation that we face.One way that we can test how online our thinking is in a particular situation is to look at the results we achieve as a result of the actions we took. Good results means our governing beliefs were online, bad results means that we need to re-evaluate our beliefs to determine what caused the negative outcome.

I would propose that life is very much like a game and that a comparison between the two is very enlightening.In any game, you need to be fit, possess certain skills and have a good knowledge of the rules in order to participate.In life, we need to have a good knowledge of the rules that apply and to use this knowledge continuously in order to assess and make decisions in every situation that we face.The more intensely we play the game of life,the better our knowledge and application of the rules, the better the results we will achieve, much like a football player who is skilled, trains hard and knows the rules.

During the course of our lives we progress from being dependent on our parents for food and shelter and emotional support, to being independent as we become young adults.We learn to make decisions for ourselves, and as we see the results of our decisions we get feedback and the resultant experience adds wisdom to subsequent decisions.

The next stage is to develop relationships with others,or interdependence, and it is through these relationships that significant personal growth can occur.Many of us however have a low sense of self esteem which holds us back in relating to others.

How then do we make significant progress in our lives, as evidenced by personal growth or an increase in wisdom? We look at the results we have and are achieving in our lives.If our results are unsatisfactory, we reassess our beliefs and make adjustments to our actions.Additional important feedback is our emotions (fear, anger,unhappiness,disappointment etc) which acts as warning signs and which leads us to evaluate either our rules or beliefs, or our actions. Our target is to lead a joy-filled, intense yet balanced life, leading to good life results and continually increasing wisdom.