Age – Wisdom

If This Card Chooses You – Have you been dreaming of old people? Funerals? Yourself getting old? Dream of gurus on mountaintops, buddhas, palaces of wisdom? Or are you fixating on a specific elder who had an influence – bad or good – on your young life.

Warriors’ Effort Is Sacred – Failure is when you don’t try. Bad Judgment leads to Experience which leads to Wisdom which leads to Good Judgment.

You Are Wiser Than You Know –– Contrast elders you admire with those you avoid. Aren’t the latter complainers who stress to everyone they meet the bad hand life has dealt them? They complain about their health, politics, the weather, other people – whatever crosses the windscreen of their increasingly tiny minds. In their world children never call, doctors don’t help, media is lying, weather’s getting worse, food is adulterated and we are all going to hell. This person is clamoring ever more loudly for ego strokes without apparently noticing the discomfort and distaste of those around them. Rather than trying a new strategy, they step up their whingeing. Read the room! Is what you want to scream at them but you realize they can no longer “learn.” This is the opposite of wisdom. This is senility. A brain is shutting down, a personality is beggared and no one wants to be around it.

Think of an elder you admire. Nelson Mandela, Joe Biden, Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Pema Chodron, the Pope? This person is Ego-Less. This is a person who talks about others, not themselves. They care for others. They discuss ideas rather than gossip and have a long memory of problems, solutions, trial and error. They keep themselves “young” in all the ways that matter. People flock to them.

There’s an old Cherokee story about how each of us is born with a good wolf and a bad wolf inside of us. The one that gets stronger and takes control is the one you feed. Your challenge is to figure out how to practice wisdom every day. Accepting your dreams and encouraging their deepening understanding is the beginning of wisdom.

The pursuit of gurus is inherently dangerous because there are a lot of con artists out there seeking hostages and slaves. Avoid people who use:

1. Projection – Unwilling to see their own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of one’s negative behaviors by attributing them to someone else. It acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.
2. Nonsensical conversations from hell – Be prepared for word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way.
3. Blanket statements and generalizations –
4. Misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity 
5. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts 
6. Changing the subject to evade accountability 
7. Covert and overt threats 
8. Name-calling
9. Destructive conditioning – They condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about the qualities and traits you once idealized as well as sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re essentially “trained” over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.
10. Smear campaigns and stalking 
11. Playing the Martyr or victim
12. Demands Immediate Unthinking Fealty – When someone stresses the fact that they are a “nice guy” or girl, that you should “trust them” right away or emphasizes their credibility without proof, be wary.
13. Baits and badgers you – Feigns innocence
14. Boundary testing – You are not allowed to have boundaries or even triggers
15. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes 
16. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone 
17. Belittling, degrading, shaming

Our Scars Are The Definition of Beauty -You can see this is all about Control. Avoid those who seek to control or dominate you. The Revered Elders mentioned above would not do that.

Warriors Know Their Allies – Warriors don’t fear getting old. People come and go, but the right ones stay. Time shows you the difference between the strength and honor of another’s heart. Warriors share their knowledge.

Warriors Can Read the Signs – If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. You have trained yourself to trust yourself. You can read and write maps, you can interpret Nature, you see Red Flags before they wave for others.

Warriors Earn Peace – Random acts of kindness make everyone feel better. Warriors’ “can do” attitude spreads peace. Warriors welcome other peaceful spirits. We challenge the troubled to take their drama elsewhere.

Models & Mentors – “You can’t control the wind but you can learn to adjust your sails.” – Jimmy Dean

“It always seems impossible till it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

“Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens” – Jimi Hendrix

“I am thankful to those who said No. Because of them, I did it myself.” – Albert Einstein

“Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley

“It is never too late to be who you might have been” – George Eliot

‘Wisdom is the journey no one can take for us” – Marcel Proust

#Haiku: Noble Heart

Sit
In peace
Regift
The rubble of your life:
Wreckage
Belongs to All.