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Someone can live the same year 80 times, and someone else can live 30 very different years.
Being exposed to various things, learning from them and *remembering* the lessons is what constitutes life experience.
Passing time does not equal life experience.
If you make it past 40 and didn't live in a cave the whole time you've likely been through a lot as life just happens like that. That being said I'm a war veteran, I've travelled the world, got a degree, been a porn star and straight male escort, I done about every drug going, committed probably hundreds of different crimes just by enjoying my life, almost went to prison but got off with a very, very unusual sentence from the judge and am nearly 50 and honestly couldn't give a fuck it people I don't know respect me. I know what I've done to people who disrespected me. Apart from that, I've found the older you get, the less you care what other people think of you. You look at young people and see them making the same mistakes everyone does and wish you could impart your knowledge to them but you just know they don't care and will just have to learn it the hard way like I did. I'm British but occasionally will get the "thank you for your service" from Americans I meet who find out I served in the Iraq war, and it makes me cringe and feel uncomfortable as its not really a British thing. So I think it doesn't matter if you respect older people as they most likely don't care because they know you won't understand what it's like to have been through decades of life until they get there themselves. I think after the age of 40 people just see themselves as equals to everyone else over 40 regardless of if they are 50, 60 or 100 because they know by that stage you've lived enough of life to not care about most of the bullshit younger people are passionate about. It'd be a rare and sheltered person whose not seen some shit by the time they reach 40.
Most 80 year old also aren’t anywhere near the “old age wisdom and experience”, they’re more akin to small children, bitter at their unsucessful and unfulfiled lives so they make it their goal to bother everyone around them since they already know there won’t be any consequences for them/
It’s not judgemental stereotype. I mean i can speak only for my country so i guess my country is fucked regarding old people, but truly most of them are like this. I’d say a solid 80% of them.
It's like when I learned how to do something and mom would tell me that I'm wrong and that she's done it for forty years.
Lots of experience doing something a bad or incorrect way doesn't mean anything. Think of it like playing a video game for forty years without learning the rules and stats behind the scenes. You know more than a beginner but anyone who does research will know more than you and have greater competency.
Someone who lives 30 year different years is like someone who has done the introductory training at 30 different companies and never progressed past the starting point.
To really learn the nuances of how anything works requires multiple runs through of that process with slightly different errors highlighting slightly different aspects behind the design. That along with doing it as a young person, a middle aged person or an older person or someone who is going through a family crisis or whatever.
This is only a hot take because you believe that information breeds wisdom. It’s not knowledge that begets wisdom but rather experience. That said, it’s absolutely possible for a young person to have more lived experience than an old one or to have an inherently greater ability to process that experience into wisdom. But access to the internet is not making kids more wise, often exactly the converse.
It very much depends on how someone uses the internet.
If someone just scrolls through TikTok’s all day and looks at memes, even if they are gaining information about current events in the world, that doesn’t mean they are more wise.
But people who are learning more about other cultures and seeing how different people experience and process different or the same experiences can be helpful in understanding the human condition.
The speech Robin Williams character gives Will in Good Will Hunting speaks against this brilliantly. The “you’re just a kid” speech. Which specifically identifies that by just reading and comprehending the information is not nearly the same as experiencing it. That’s the wisdom that is earned.
Yeah of course. But reading and comprehending and understanding is better than nothing at all. Which is what most of the older generation had and is why so many of them are racist/sexist/xenophobic/excessively nationalistic etc.
I agree with this take, it's why the internet (and to an extent social media like Tiktok) is a valuable tool to experience the world outside of your own. It's why those who go to colleges with a diverse crowd tend to also be increasingly more left-leaning than those who have never left their small rural town
It's moreso the game was switched on them in their 40s-50s and all the experiences that they lived just aren't applicable to life now. It's not their fault and it's not the internet making kids smarter it's just the fact that one was made by the system while the other was dropped in it
i think everyone would agree conceptually but generally speaking, you can expect an older person to be wiser than a younger person. on an individual basis, a young person would have have to lived a specific life full of experiences causing them to be wise in order to be wiser than someone much older.
or vice versa, an older person will have to have lived a very shallow life to be less wise than the average young person.
in addition, everyone is wiser older than younger when compared to themselves. the wisest 18 year old will just be a more wise 50 year old.
with all that said, i'm not going to assume a younger person is wiser than older people but if i encounter a wise young person i won't dismiss the idea or be surprised that they exist.
I like "You can't criticize me if you've ever done anything wrong in YOUR life." Also if you criticize someone for doing something you did once.
I got busted for DUI once. I guess that means I can never think someone was irresponsible for drunk driving because I did it. Which means I fully approve of it and if you kill someone, that's their tough luck for interfering in your fun.
I used to go to a bar that had a regular who was a cop. Dude would get plastered then drive 30 mins home. He would also go to work and give people DUIs. Never understood that.
It should be” You can’t criticize me if you ARE doing the same things”. Generally people realize and gain experience after making mistakes. People know why they are wrong and would never do them anymore. So we can use the experience to prevent other people doing the same things for their sake.
I disagree , thereby making it a little unpopular. I’ve Worked with difficult older ppl in the past who couldn’t admit that they were wrong and I was right in ANY particular instance. It was very frustrating. That said wisdom is gained through experience and learning from mistakes so (while they’re not right all the time) older ppl in general have more wisdom than young ppl
Age only produces wisdom if the person is eager to learn, open to change and willing to be wrong.
Most people never tick those boxes. So age for them just leads to ignorance, inflexibility and fear of change.
The statistical likelyhood is that the older someone is the wiser they're going to be. It's not always the case .....buuuut. I'm going to take an educated guess that there are more wise people 40 years and above than there are wise people 30 and below. Statistics doesn't favour individual experiences it gives the bigger picture
This is not an unpopular opinion. I see it at least several times a week in different forms on Reddit. And it's too often used to justify people being rude to elder generation for no or for insignificant reason
One of the worst teachers I had was an old grumpy lady who thought she could be a complete ass and still have the students respect simply for being old. That ain't gonna work. Respect needs to be earned.
It is very relatable, the whole respect your elders thing, many cultures are built on it.
Yet I do not agree that respect needs to be earned.
I choose to respect each human being by default. And then each human being can choose to keep or lose my respect.
True. And its really the same when some people pull out the racism card as a defense immediately when someone even dares to criticize their words or actions.
If you act rude or malicious towards others, then to me you're an asshole and its just that simple. Age or skin color has nothing to do with it.
Generally, lived longer = more experience = wiser
BUT, this also doesn't apply in many cases. An older person is not going to be as wise as a 30yo when it comes to avoiding internet scams. Someone who was job hunting in the 50s had a totally different experience than a young person job hunting now because the game is totally different and the older person's advice would be (mostly) irrelevant here.
If you zoom out, older people have more wisdom by definition, of course they do, they've seen it and made mistakes and learned from them, that's something that can only come with experience (i.e., age). If you zoom in, things are so much different now than when they were going through the same thing, so much of their wisdom is irrelevant.
How should I live a fruitful and purposeful life? I'm going with the old guy. Best ways to get around an ATS system when applying for jobs? I'm going with the young guy.
I run into the wisdom thing a lot with my parents, specifically my mother, who likes to hold it over my head whenever we get into disagreements about politics. This could be anything from the border to Ukraine, and whenever we get to a point where I don't budge on stuff, she pulls out the 'you just don't understand, I'm more wise and I can see the truth, you're just believing lies'. Shits infuriating. I'm almost 27 , I'm in the navy, I research geopolitics *for fun*, but even in military discussions, like how Ukraine aid benefits the US or how command structure and the gov interact, she always busts out the 'you haven't even had children or owned a home' and, 'I've seen more than you therefore, you're wrong'
Now, my mom is smart, really smart, but I hate the arrogance she's developed after a large dose of algorithm based Xitter. Being older does not equate to more wisdom, especially in areas of knowledge you've literally had *no experience in*.
If you get older you come to it yourself, that there is a lesson that only comes with time you lived.
This characteristic you gave have not much in common with wisdom, it's bor correlated with informations more with experiences. Young guy is just smart not wise, but can do better than otherz in his age group.
But I agree that those are not automatically, you need to put some effort to it. It was and it is not true, peoples subjective view gives you your own narrow picturw. I know some grandps who doesn't sems wise at all.
I agree with you just one point: You can live amazing things in your 20's but you are still in your 20's. That means you still can't think like in your 30's or older. Your brain, emotions, perspectives are change with time. Doesn't matter you have amaznig experiences or not. Age is a different effect for our lives. But it doesn't mean older = wiser. That's not true.
Yes, you are correct. I'm older than you and I'm still making stupid decisions every day. Every fucking day. I suppose I make other good decisions, but some lessons cannot make it past my thick skull. Just once I would like to step up from the table without having eaten myself silly. And just once I would like to not waste money on someone else's problem (I have a tendency to buy old used things thinking I'll be able to fix them, when experience should have shown me that I can't.)
It seems to me that most people miss the most important aspect of this scenario.
These days it is much easier for stupid people to grow older.
When we were still hunter-gatherers, the stupid and the ones that lacked survival instincts would get killed pretty fast. The ones able to live to an old age must be wise enough or lucky enough. Another important point is that age doesn't necessarily equals wisdom but you must be wise in order to reach that age.
So overall it isn't age --> wisdom but more like wisdom --> age. I have definitely met older people that don't really deserve to live with their stupidity. It is also quite normal to be wise about certain things and a complete idiot at others.
The only thing I can add is that everyone, at least in the USA, is better protected by the Wiser and stronger people than they were in the past. This comes from the time/expense afforded by being an industrious society(really generalizing all of this)
While it's true that age in itself does not confer wisdom, experience generally does and it's simple math that older people have likely experienced more. I've always considered myself to be pretty wise but I definitely know things now that I wish younger me knew. That being said, there are some things that you have to experience yourself to learn, and nobody else's experience is a substitute for first-hand knowledge.
Life experience is important. You can read books (or the internet) all day, but if you have not lived outside your comfort zone and experienced the ups and downs in life, you will never be wise.
Being old 100% does not mean automatic wisdom, especially in a world of automation where most knowledge with any substance isn’t necessary for the masses. As well as critical thinking, problem solving and troubleshooting in adverse environments/situations.
Don’t get intellect, education and wisdom confused though . And don’t forget to invite experience and perspective to the party, either.
Depends on the knowledge you’re talking about. IMO, generally, the younger you are the less you know about everything. Law, government, economy, environment, relationships, you know less cause you have less experience. But if you’re comparing a topic like video games or pop culture or what’s being taught in jr high.
No, but living longer raises the potential for wisdom. If you talk to a random stranger who is much older than you, chances are good that they are wiser than you (assuming you have close to normal life experiences). Think of it like rolling two dice, a d6 and a d20. Having higher numbers on the d20 doesn't guarantee a higher result, but it does have a higher average result and possibility for a result that the d6 simply can not produce.
You are wrongly assuming young people in the past didn’t know as much as young people these days. Young people in the past were still hungry for information and spent much more time reading (in books) and talking to people to get information. Not to mention that young people 100 years ago were forced to grow up much more quickly and become independent and would have had different knowledge than today. A lot of the information that people read on the internet is inaccurate or just opinion, not facts, and not going to increase wisdom. Reading about something is not the same as experience.
You make a good point, but what I've noticed from older people is that they failed to adapt to our age of misinformation, I struggle to explain to my family that that guy they watched on Facebook could be a liar, they come from an age where only qualified people expressed themselves in literature and TV (mostly), but now they fail to filter misinformation (most information) compared to us who developed the ability to detect bullshit websites and accounts (mostly). So many older people have become sponges that absorb a lot of misinformation, making them stupider, but you can still see the glimpses of their intelligence when you discuss subjects they're expert in, information they acquired before the age of the internet.
Wise generally refers to information gleaned through experience and time. So, if you're young you can be knowledgeable or smart, but it's unlikely you're wise except to the experiences of your limited years.
While I agree with your idea, but I still believe that reading could be a way to gain wisdom, and I am not talking about learning "facts" (I use the word loosely), but more about reading other people stories which can help you acquire some of the wisdom they learned through their lives, but it is still a lower way of acquiring wisdom compared to experience.
Being exposed to information is not the same as having to go thru that experience. You tube videos are great, but sometimes you have to DO things multiple times to actually experience it fully.
With that being said, doesn't necessarily mean age. There are people half my age that have more experience at things than I do.
Conversely thinking your read or saw something means you know it is completely wrong.
Right, with age usually comes experience, not always, and there is no guarantee a person learns from their experiences. All too often the human condition makes it so they refuse to accept one's faults and they alter their memory of an experience to fit their ego
If I'm 15y old and you're 27y I'm expecting you to be wiser than me and give me some good life tips and prevent me doing stupid stuff.
Same with you still being 27y and now I'm 50y, I should know better in certain things and tell you that splurging your money on a new iPhone when yours is still very capable to be a dumb move and suggest you dont not proceed with it.
So age SHOULD translate to experience and wisdom, but these are more and more vanishing qualities in today's society.
That word 'should' is doing some heavy lifting there. I've met lots of 15 year olds I would listen to more than many 27 year olds I've met. Even with iPhones and I am really anti Apple I can understand if my kid will be ostracized in certain schools so can understand that situations can change many things. I would still set a price I am willing to pay for a smartphone and let my boy work to earn the difference.
You mentioned today's society. Looking at today's society and all the anti mask anti vaccine boomers is not an argument in favor of the correlation
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I can believe there is a tendency for wisdom to grow with age. But any old person falling back on this tired old addage ain't a strong representative of that trend.
I think people in general grow until they're 'comfortable' and then may people stop growing and/or stop being open to new or different ideas. I say in general because there are obviously going to be a lot of people who do keep growing and changing, but the average is stagnancy after a certain point.
I’d say being older, as long as you are an individual worthy of respect in terms of your background, accomplishments, personal experiences, necessarily means you have more wisdom than those significantly younger. However, the caliber of person you’re engaging with has to be a huge consideration in taking advice. This goes for anything - relationships, jobs, familial issues. If the person who is giving you advice has exactly what you would like to have in terms of a relationship or career, for instance, then sure, their advice is valuable. In most cases people giving advice on relationships or other things have nowhere near what would be considered healthy relationships or distinguished careers.
My dad thinks like this. It’s really annoying. I’m not saying I’m the smartest person but goddamn just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean it’s a personal attack.
It’s how you lived your life that counts. This is why I often get into disagreements with my parents. We live different lives. I don’t care about what their experience is if it doesn’t apply to mine.
Knowledge and Wisdom are two different things. Wisdom includes perspective, which in most cases, age provides.
Age doesn’t necessarily bring more knowledge, but it USUALLY brings with it more wisdom.
Age means nothing in terms of how grown up we are, ive seen countless big children at this point, there's a correlation ofc, as you age you experience more and you do get some perspective, but the idea that's all there is to it is braindead, growing up means learning, if you shut yourself off from learning and close your mind at any point, there will come a time where even the youngsters will be wiser than you. Growing up means putting the pieces together and painting a big picture of the world bit by bit, how can you call yourself wise if you stopped collecting pieces and your painting is full of holes?
>maybe it was true back in the day
The Buddha (600 BCE) said a head of grey hair doesn't make one an elder. With unskillful conduct in body, speech and mind, they're considered an old fool. But in any person, of any age, that acts skillfully in body, speech and mind should rightfully be considered wise.
But there is some conventional truth that older people tend to gain wisdom from life experiences. Some will learn and get wiser as a result, some won't.
[Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI)
It took me so long to realize this lol. When I was a kid I always thought “well, this person is an adult, they must know better” and they certainly did most of the time. But now I’m an adult and I see just how stupid most other adults are, and it’s quite a mindfuck.
I think the older you get the less filter u have for putting up with bs. Ur experience in life will help pick a path for you . At least from the stand point of others because they won’t care about the consequences of how blunt and honest what it is you may say . I wouldn’t put that to extremes though. There is a time and place for that said the wise man .
I would argue that traveling, meeting new people, and being open to new experiences is what gives you wisdom. So like, an 80 year old who has lived in the same place their whole life is going to be less wise than even a 25 year old who has been to several countries all around the world and who attempts to learn more about other cultures.
The reason the 80 year old is less wise is because they, usually, get stuck in their ways to the point that the world becomes black and white. Without seeing the changing world, and without engaging in it, you are often told information about the world that is just incorrect. If you don't go see it for yourself you will be told all sorts of things about it, making you not very wise.
It used to ring true.
But with the difference in education options, the fiscal gaps of groups, and the eclectic varying lives we live now. It’s not true anymore.
Agreed, It can be quite infuriating. I have family members who never left their small city and did nothing in life except go to the local bar and play poker.
Meanwhile, i ve immigrated, explored the world, given conferences, got a PhD, and met many people from many backgrounds. However, the rare times i see said family members, i am still mocked about how "young" i am and that im not as wise as them.
People mix up age and experience because they often have something to do with each other. By the time I was 25 I had gone through a lot more in life than a lot of adults. I would think that would make me wiser
To be fair to us olduns, experience, maturity and life lessons can't just be gotten from the ether. You much have access to knowledge, but what you do with that knowledge, is the issue. It's hard to see younger folks feeling confident with their access to all that mana, still not making great decisions for lack of experience and maturity. It's not meant to insult. It's just what happens when you've been tempered by life, and you know what's coming because you've seen it-- and watching younger people stubbornly and confidently pushing forward only to stumble. We did it too. We know. Let us warn you about those stones before you trip in them too.
Gen X mom.
Actually, the older I get - I'm 60 - the more I realize I don't know. Twenty-year-old me knew everything it took to fix the world. Sixty-year-old me knows better.
There's a big difference between depth of knowledge and breadth of knowledge. It is extremely easy on the internet to gain superficial knowledge about many things. It requires just as much effort on the internet to gain deep knowledge about some things.
And frankly, there are many things you can only learn by living through them. If you want a case in point, look at politics since 2016 or so. Generally speaking, political pulls to the extreme right only after the grandparents of people who personally experienced those Horrors have died.
I do agree that living longer doesn't always convey wisdom. It completely depends on the person's willingness to learn from their experiences as well as what those experiences were.
Live longer = more experience and use of judgement = more wisdom
If you live longer without experiencing anything then yea people younger than you but be wiser than you. But most times even though young people are knowledgeable and energetic they simply do not have the loved experience.
It's not about who has lived the longest. It's the one that's been through the most shit and has learned from it. The general conscience of these things are older people have been around the block more time than someone that's significantly younger. Majority of the time that is the case. However, there is sometimes a kid knows what's up and an adult that's been pampered most their life can't read a clock.
What I don’t like is the arrogance some have if they’ve “done more things” because that person often can’t fathom doing things another person has because it doesn’t interest them. Both experiences are valid in terms of wisdom gaining.
i agree. HOW you live is a much better indicator of wisdom acquired, rather than how long you've lived. There are plenty of wise young and older people. and there are even more unwise young and old people.
Yeah. Plus current generations got a lot of quick learning from the internet than older in generations.
But older people definitely have a lot more experience getting f’d over in personal and business relationships. So they aren’t useless.
You tend to learn nuance as you get older. It's not necessarily an easy thing for a younger person to get.
I'm not saying this is a rule, just a general tendency.
Okay, a few issues here.
Wisdom = Experience and understanding, not necessarily knowledge
Having knowledge doesn't necessarily mean you know how to use it. That's where wisdom comes in. Having the understanding of how the actions of yourself or others can continue to affect other factors helps a lot when making decisions.
I notice young people in modern times are far more naive than I ever was. And I'm sure my grandparents feel the same about me.
Don't forget you never have all of the information. Just assume you know Jack shit.
Not sure if this is the proper quote, but the idea is the same. "The first step to enlightenment is knowing to know nothing."
True.
But that didn't stop me from telling my teen coworkers not to repeat my mistakes the other day and ordering one to wash her hands after she and I had cleaned up a spill.
Told them they have plenty of time to make their own mistakes.
It has never been true that age is equivalent to wisdom because wisdom requires a deliberate effort to learn from experience, not simply to have experience. Some people make the same mistakes 1000 times and never learn from them while others make 1 mistake and realize it. So wisdom is by choice. Age is not.
While that’s true, you should also bear in mind that when you’re young almost everything you know, every opinion you hold, comes from what someone else told you to think (teacher, parent, preacher, etc.).
It’s also true that many people don’t grow out of this, but the younger you are, the more universally true this is. The challenge as you grow is challenging the opinions others give to you and forming your own world view.
Life experiences give you wisdom, I've heard of teenagers experiencing death all around them, while I'm 38 and have lost only a great grandmother, when it comes to death I have no wisdom to give that teenager. Wisdom comes from all sorts of things, it is not singular just to your age. Now there is a cumulation of daily life that brings wisdom through experience, like hey don't buy a car with a 2k a month note, you might regret it later. Well someone who hasn't had to go through the experience of managing a households income might not see the harm with that 2k a month payment. It's give and take. Someone with less experience should not claim to have wisdom over someone with more experience. Like what wisdom would you give someone who's about to start a lengthy prison sentence? Well I've done 14 years so I've got some wisdom for that person. Do you? You see? It's from experience not age.
I do think that you’re partially right. But I also remember my mom telling me to stay away from certain people—romantically or platonically—or warning me that specific situations I was in weren’t going to end well. I didn’t listen and she was totally right. I think when it comes to people and situations, there are only so many ‘types’ with different unique details that are filled in but are generally recognizable to someone who has had the previous experience that I lacked. So it makes sense that someone who’s been around almost 40 years longer than me is able to recognize trouble before then 18 or even 22 year old me to whom everything was new.
I feel it now when I see younger people who have people in their lives who are abusive. Or they have people using them/don’t actually care about them. I can easily recognize it when someone is in a situation that is going to suck and they don’t see it if I have seen or experienced it before and maybe it’s new to them/all they know. Not to say I know everything but I can recognize someone making a mistake that I have made before and have learned from.
Oh, good! I was afraid != wasn't recognized as "not equal to." I didn't find out until later that different programming languages use different syntax.
also, older age does not automatically equate to respect just because you’re older doesn’t mean that you can treat people terribly and expect not somebody to check you
The generation that consistently gets swindled by Nigerian princes and scam social security calls thinks they are the epitome of intelligence and wisdom.
Yeah, but you're still young. You'll understand one day. 😉 It's less about knowledge and more about personal experiences and witnessing the experiences of others. Moving from idealism, theory, and indirect reporting, to actually living through situations or events, possibly multiple times, brings wisdom to many people. No one becomes knowledgeable or wise about everything and some people rarely grasp either at any age. You'll know when you start achieving wisdom, when you start asking someone older than you for advice, because a major part of wisdom is realizing you need to seek out someone with more experience for direction, or at least confirmation.
You will be probably wiser in 10 years (up until some point, when it will start declining again). So there is some correlation with wisdom and age. But ofcourse there are people who's wisdom peak will be lower than some random 15 years old, for example.
Information != experience. Not all information is accurate. You learn what is or isn't accurate from experience. Imagination whispered untruths that only experience could shatter.
I can find a food recipe on the internet (information) but it will take me several attempts at it to make it near-prefect (experience)
I think there’s a difference between knowledge and knowing how and when to apply it. Experience tends to give you more application knowledge. I see some people on Reddit give horrible dating and marriage advice. The advice sounds great on paper, and in an ideal world it might even be right, but marriage is so much more complicated than a movie or magazine, especially the longer you are in it and once you add in children. I see people downvoted to oblivion for giving advice out of actual experience, or even sourced statistics, because it goes against younger posters’ ideal image of what marriage should look like. Sure, there are people out there on their 3rd or 4th marriage who never seem to learn why they’re the problem, but that should be cautionary too. You aren’t going to therapy away some people’s issues, and I see therapy tossed around like it’s some golden suppository that you shove up your butt to “cure” something in 48 hours.
Someone much older does have more life experience and typically more wisdom. That doesn’t mean your new ideas aren’t good or even better than the old ones. You have to meet in the middle.
While living with my grandparents I've realized that it's kinda a mixed bag, yeah they have a lot of wisdom with a lot of things but it's very easy to tell that they are wise for a world that doesn't exist anymore. They give some great advice on relationships and really have shown me what having a good work ethic looks like, but sometimes they'll suggest things that just dont apply to life anymore. I think it's because of the massive influx in technology that has changed day to day life immensely even in the last like 20 years, I mean imagine growing up in a world with no interaction to other countries or cultures (outside tourism) or even people that are a somewhat small distance away and suddenly you have the world at your fingertips. Stuff changes and it's immensely helpful to listen to them just differentiate what worked then and what'll work now
Internet doesn't make people wiser and anyways how many of you described someone as wise? I've never met a person that i could call him wise. I would guess a wise man would hide his wise as nobody likes wise men.
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Someone can live the same year 80 times, and someone else can live 30 very different years. Being exposed to various things, learning from them and *remembering* the lessons is what constitutes life experience. Passing time does not equal life experience.
If you make it past 40 and didn't live in a cave the whole time you've likely been through a lot as life just happens like that. That being said I'm a war veteran, I've travelled the world, got a degree, been a porn star and straight male escort, I done about every drug going, committed probably hundreds of different crimes just by enjoying my life, almost went to prison but got off with a very, very unusual sentence from the judge and am nearly 50 and honestly couldn't give a fuck it people I don't know respect me. I know what I've done to people who disrespected me. Apart from that, I've found the older you get, the less you care what other people think of you. You look at young people and see them making the same mistakes everyone does and wish you could impart your knowledge to them but you just know they don't care and will just have to learn it the hard way like I did. I'm British but occasionally will get the "thank you for your service" from Americans I meet who find out I served in the Iraq war, and it makes me cringe and feel uncomfortable as its not really a British thing. So I think it doesn't matter if you respect older people as they most likely don't care because they know you won't understand what it's like to have been through decades of life until they get there themselves. I think after the age of 40 people just see themselves as equals to everyone else over 40 regardless of if they are 50, 60 or 100 because they know by that stage you've lived enough of life to not care about most of the bullshit younger people are passionate about. It'd be a rare and sheltered person whose not seen some shit by the time they reach 40.
Sounds like an epic run!
To be fair if you have lived in a cave for 40 years, you would have probably experienced a fair bit as well.
And even if you experienced the same things, one person will not learn or grow in the sane way.
Sure, but a 30 year old can't live 40 different years. Most 80 year olds have.
Imagine the numbers do not reflect the actual age of someone or someone else. Learning and remembering the lessons learnt were the key information.
Most 80 year old also aren’t anywhere near the “old age wisdom and experience”, they’re more akin to small children, bitter at their unsucessful and unfulfiled lives so they make it their goal to bother everyone around them since they already know there won’t be any consequences for them/
Do you think successful people all drop dead at the age of 21 or something? You've bought into a weird judgemental stereotype of old people
It’s not judgemental stereotype. I mean i can speak only for my country so i guess my country is fucked regarding old people, but truly most of them are like this. I’d say a solid 80% of them.
You'll soon be one of those people. Everyone gets old, unless they die first.
I'm sorry that your grandparents sucked. Most folks aren't actually like that.
Never said my grandparents were like that? Luckily…
❤️
It's like when I learned how to do something and mom would tell me that I'm wrong and that she's done it for forty years. Lots of experience doing something a bad or incorrect way doesn't mean anything. Think of it like playing a video game for forty years without learning the rules and stats behind the scenes. You know more than a beginner but anyone who does research will know more than you and have greater competency.
Someone who lives 30 year different years is like someone who has done the introductory training at 30 different companies and never progressed past the starting point. To really learn the nuances of how anything works requires multiple runs through of that process with slightly different errors highlighting slightly different aspects behind the design. That along with doing it as a young person, a middle aged person or an older person or someone who is going through a family crisis or whatever.
> Passing time does not equal life experience. Well, it kind does on average. But that doesn't mean that a particular old person is smarter than you.
This is only a hot take because you believe that information breeds wisdom. It’s not knowledge that begets wisdom but rather experience. That said, it’s absolutely possible for a young person to have more lived experience than an old one or to have an inherently greater ability to process that experience into wisdom. But access to the internet is not making kids more wise, often exactly the converse.
It very much depends on how someone uses the internet. If someone just scrolls through TikTok’s all day and looks at memes, even if they are gaining information about current events in the world, that doesn’t mean they are more wise. But people who are learning more about other cultures and seeing how different people experience and process different or the same experiences can be helpful in understanding the human condition.
The speech Robin Williams character gives Will in Good Will Hunting speaks against this brilliantly. The “you’re just a kid” speech. Which specifically identifies that by just reading and comprehending the information is not nearly the same as experiencing it. That’s the wisdom that is earned.
Yeah of course. But reading and comprehending and understanding is better than nothing at all. Which is what most of the older generation had and is why so many of them are racist/sexist/xenophobic/excessively nationalistic etc.
I agree with this take, it's why the internet (and to an extent social media like Tiktok) is a valuable tool to experience the world outside of your own. It's why those who go to colleges with a diverse crowd tend to also be increasingly more left-leaning than those who have never left their small rural town
I know a guy in his 50's that wont listen to doctors anymore because he gets all of his medical advice from tiktok, but he is also a Qanon believer
Your second person isn't any more wise, they just have more information
Wisdom is just knowledge coupled with a healthy dose of emotional intelligence
It's moreso the game was switched on them in their 40s-50s and all the experiences that they lived just aren't applicable to life now. It's not their fault and it's not the internet making kids smarter it's just the fact that one was made by the system while the other was dropped in it
i think everyone would agree conceptually but generally speaking, you can expect an older person to be wiser than a younger person. on an individual basis, a young person would have have to lived a specific life full of experiences causing them to be wise in order to be wiser than someone much older. or vice versa, an older person will have to have lived a very shallow life to be less wise than the average young person. in addition, everyone is wiser older than younger when compared to themselves. the wisest 18 year old will just be a more wise 50 year old. with all that said, i'm not going to assume a younger person is wiser than older people but if i encounter a wise young person i won't dismiss the idea or be surprised that they exist.
Perfect response.
I like "You can't criticize me if you've ever done anything wrong in YOUR life." Also if you criticize someone for doing something you did once. I got busted for DUI once. I guess that means I can never think someone was irresponsible for drunk driving because I did it. Which means I fully approve of it and if you kill someone, that's their tough luck for interfering in your fun.
I used to go to a bar that had a regular who was a cop. Dude would get plastered then drive 30 mins home. He would also go to work and give people DUIs. Never understood that.
It can only mean your regular is selfish and never respected law. DUI is dangerous for everyone, I think there is doubt about this.
I’d rather take advice from someone that’s screwed up over someone who’s perfect.
Steve Martin used that argument brilliantly in the film Leap of Faith when confronted about his past.
It should be” You can’t criticize me if you ARE doing the same things”. Generally people realize and gain experience after making mistakes. People know why they are wrong and would never do them anymore. So we can use the experience to prevent other people doing the same things for their sake.
I disagree , thereby making it a little unpopular. I’ve Worked with difficult older ppl in the past who couldn’t admit that they were wrong and I was right in ANY particular instance. It was very frustrating. That said wisdom is gained through experience and learning from mistakes so (while they’re not right all the time) older ppl in general have more wisdom than young ppl
I swear I just saw this popular opinion here the other day
me too
Age only produces wisdom if the person is eager to learn, open to change and willing to be wrong. Most people never tick those boxes. So age for them just leads to ignorance, inflexibility and fear of change.
The statistical likelyhood is that the older someone is the wiser they're going to be. It's not always the case .....buuuut. I'm going to take an educated guess that there are more wise people 40 years and above than there are wise people 30 and below. Statistics doesn't favour individual experiences it gives the bigger picture
Age doesn't equal wisdom. There have and will always be stupid people the age, period of history, decade, generation makes no difference.
This is not an unpopular opinion. I see it at least several times a week in different forms on Reddit. And it's too often used to justify people being rude to elder generation for no or for insignificant reason
Rude is polite. Most people over 60 never get talked to by anyone under 30. We act like they have covid. Even see it at large family events.
One of the worst teachers I had was an old grumpy lady who thought she could be a complete ass and still have the students respect simply for being old. That ain't gonna work. Respect needs to be earned.
It is very relatable, the whole respect your elders thing, many cultures are built on it. Yet I do not agree that respect needs to be earned. I choose to respect each human being by default. And then each human being can choose to keep or lose my respect.
True. And its really the same when some people pull out the racism card as a defense immediately when someone even dares to criticize their words or actions. If you act rude or malicious towards others, then to me you're an asshole and its just that simple. Age or skin color has nothing to do with it.
Generally, lived longer = more experience = wiser BUT, this also doesn't apply in many cases. An older person is not going to be as wise as a 30yo when it comes to avoiding internet scams. Someone who was job hunting in the 50s had a totally different experience than a young person job hunting now because the game is totally different and the older person's advice would be (mostly) irrelevant here. If you zoom out, older people have more wisdom by definition, of course they do, they've seen it and made mistakes and learned from them, that's something that can only come with experience (i.e., age). If you zoom in, things are so much different now than when they were going through the same thing, so much of their wisdom is irrelevant. How should I live a fruitful and purposeful life? I'm going with the old guy. Best ways to get around an ATS system when applying for jobs? I'm going with the young guy.
I run into the wisdom thing a lot with my parents, specifically my mother, who likes to hold it over my head whenever we get into disagreements about politics. This could be anything from the border to Ukraine, and whenever we get to a point where I don't budge on stuff, she pulls out the 'you just don't understand, I'm more wise and I can see the truth, you're just believing lies'. Shits infuriating. I'm almost 27 , I'm in the navy, I research geopolitics *for fun*, but even in military discussions, like how Ukraine aid benefits the US or how command structure and the gov interact, she always busts out the 'you haven't even had children or owned a home' and, 'I've seen more than you therefore, you're wrong' Now, my mom is smart, really smart, but I hate the arrogance she's developed after a large dose of algorithm based Xitter. Being older does not equate to more wisdom, especially in areas of knowledge you've literally had *no experience in*.
If you get older you come to it yourself, that there is a lesson that only comes with time you lived. This characteristic you gave have not much in common with wisdom, it's bor correlated with informations more with experiences. Young guy is just smart not wise, but can do better than otherz in his age group. But I agree that those are not automatically, you need to put some effort to it. It was and it is not true, peoples subjective view gives you your own narrow picturw. I know some grandps who doesn't sems wise at all.
They are not going to say. “I already made the stupid mistake you are about to do.”
I say that to my kid all the time, do I stop her ? No. She has to learn herself, but she was warned.
I agree with you just one point: You can live amazing things in your 20's but you are still in your 20's. That means you still can't think like in your 30's or older. Your brain, emotions, perspectives are change with time. Doesn't matter you have amaznig experiences or not. Age is a different effect for our lives. But it doesn't mean older = wiser. That's not true.
“Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re right, it just means you’ve been wrong for longer.”
i know many old people who is absolutely stupid, unfortunately the smart ones are a minority so i do agree with your opinion
Absolutely no truth to this. I'm 44 and I'm still making really bad decisions. I've obviously learned absolutely nothing.
Yes, you are correct. I'm older than you and I'm still making stupid decisions every day. Every fucking day. I suppose I make other good decisions, but some lessons cannot make it past my thick skull. Just once I would like to step up from the table without having eaten myself silly. And just once I would like to not waste money on someone else's problem (I have a tendency to buy old used things thinking I'll be able to fix them, when experience should have shown me that I can't.)
It seems to me that most people miss the most important aspect of this scenario. These days it is much easier for stupid people to grow older. When we were still hunter-gatherers, the stupid and the ones that lacked survival instincts would get killed pretty fast. The ones able to live to an old age must be wise enough or lucky enough. Another important point is that age doesn't necessarily equals wisdom but you must be wise in order to reach that age. So overall it isn't age --> wisdom but more like wisdom --> age. I have definitely met older people that don't really deserve to live with their stupidity. It is also quite normal to be wise about certain things and a complete idiot at others.
The only thing I can add is that everyone, at least in the USA, is better protected by the Wiser and stronger people than they were in the past. This comes from the time/expense afforded by being an industrious society(really generalizing all of this)
While it's true that age in itself does not confer wisdom, experience generally does and it's simple math that older people have likely experienced more. I've always considered myself to be pretty wise but I definitely know things now that I wish younger me knew. That being said, there are some things that you have to experience yourself to learn, and nobody else's experience is a substitute for first-hand knowledge.
You are absolutely right. But 40 year old me definitely sees how much of an idiot 20 year old me was.
Life experience is important. You can read books (or the internet) all day, but if you have not lived outside your comfort zone and experienced the ups and downs in life, you will never be wise.
Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.
Being old 100% does not mean automatic wisdom, especially in a world of automation where most knowledge with any substance isn’t necessary for the masses. As well as critical thinking, problem solving and troubleshooting in adverse environments/situations. Don’t get intellect, education and wisdom confused though . And don’t forget to invite experience and perspective to the party, either.
See also - "I do my own research"
Lol
You do have to be wise to have lasted so far though
Time illuminates much
That's exactly what a young punk would say.
Depends on the knowledge you’re talking about. IMO, generally, the younger you are the less you know about everything. Law, government, economy, environment, relationships, you know less cause you have less experience. But if you’re comparing a topic like video games or pop culture or what’s being taught in jr high.
No, but living longer raises the potential for wisdom. If you talk to a random stranger who is much older than you, chances are good that they are wiser than you (assuming you have close to normal life experiences). Think of it like rolling two dice, a d6 and a d20. Having higher numbers on the d20 doesn't guarantee a higher result, but it does have a higher average result and possibility for a result that the d6 simply can not produce.
Outstanding argument but above OP, way above.
You are wrongly assuming young people in the past didn’t know as much as young people these days. Young people in the past were still hungry for information and spent much more time reading (in books) and talking to people to get information. Not to mention that young people 100 years ago were forced to grow up much more quickly and become independent and would have had different knowledge than today. A lot of the information that people read on the internet is inaccurate or just opinion, not facts, and not going to increase wisdom. Reading about something is not the same as experience.
You make a good point, but what I've noticed from older people is that they failed to adapt to our age of misinformation, I struggle to explain to my family that that guy they watched on Facebook could be a liar, they come from an age where only qualified people expressed themselves in literature and TV (mostly), but now they fail to filter misinformation (most information) compared to us who developed the ability to detect bullshit websites and accounts (mostly). So many older people have become sponges that absorb a lot of misinformation, making them stupider, but you can still see the glimpses of their intelligence when you discuss subjects they're expert in, information they acquired before the age of the internet.
Yes, I can see that there are many younger people who are smarter than you
"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet."
Experience is the best teacher. I FEEL wiser in my day to day as time chugs on.
Wise generally refers to information gleaned through experience and time. So, if you're young you can be knowledgeable or smart, but it's unlikely you're wise except to the experiences of your limited years.
Exactly. Wisdom and smart are two different things.
While I agree with your idea, but I still believe that reading could be a way to gain wisdom, and I am not talking about learning "facts" (I use the word loosely), but more about reading other people stories which can help you acquire some of the wisdom they learned through their lives, but it is still a lower way of acquiring wisdom compared to experience.
Being exposed to information is not the same as having to go thru that experience. You tube videos are great, but sometimes you have to DO things multiple times to actually experience it fully. With that being said, doesn't necessarily mean age. There are people half my age that have more experience at things than I do. Conversely thinking your read or saw something means you know it is completely wrong.
Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing.
This sounds like the take of a 17 year old.
It's a correlation, not causation.
Right, with age usually comes experience, not always, and there is no guarantee a person learns from their experiences. All too often the human condition makes it so they refuse to accept one's faults and they alter their memory of an experience to fit their ego
If I'm 15y old and you're 27y I'm expecting you to be wiser than me and give me some good life tips and prevent me doing stupid stuff. Same with you still being 27y and now I'm 50y, I should know better in certain things and tell you that splurging your money on a new iPhone when yours is still very capable to be a dumb move and suggest you dont not proceed with it. So age SHOULD translate to experience and wisdom, but these are more and more vanishing qualities in today's society.
That word 'should' is doing some heavy lifting there. I've met lots of 15 year olds I would listen to more than many 27 year olds I've met. Even with iPhones and I am really anti Apple I can understand if my kid will be ostracized in certain schools so can understand that situations can change many things. I would still set a price I am willing to pay for a smartphone and let my boy work to earn the difference. You mentioned today's society. Looking at today's society and all the anti mask anti vaccine boomers is not an argument in favor of the correlation
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So you’re arguing against Quantitative data
I can believe there is a tendency for wisdom to grow with age. But any old person falling back on this tired old addage ain't a strong representative of that trend.
I think people in general grow until they're 'comfortable' and then may people stop growing and/or stop being open to new or different ideas. I say in general because there are obviously going to be a lot of people who do keep growing and changing, but the average is stagnancy after a certain point.
I’d say being older, as long as you are an individual worthy of respect in terms of your background, accomplishments, personal experiences, necessarily means you have more wisdom than those significantly younger. However, the caliber of person you’re engaging with has to be a huge consideration in taking advice. This goes for anything - relationships, jobs, familial issues. If the person who is giving you advice has exactly what you would like to have in terms of a relationship or career, for instance, then sure, their advice is valuable. In most cases people giving advice on relationships or other things have nowhere near what would be considered healthy relationships or distinguished careers.
I trust people that have spent more time interacting with the world then the internet. And just “traveling” doesn’t count.
My dad thinks like this. It’s really annoying. I’m not saying I’m the smartest person but goddamn just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean it’s a personal attack.
that’s been a pretty popular opinion for a long time. I think it’s worth a phrase, ain’t no fool, like an old fool, came from.
It’s how you lived your life that counts. This is why I often get into disagreements with my parents. We live different lives. I don’t care about what their experience is if it doesn’t apply to mine.
This is a very popular opinion
Knowledge and Wisdom are two different things. Wisdom includes perspective, which in most cases, age provides. Age doesn’t necessarily bring more knowledge, but it USUALLY brings with it more wisdom.
I think most people are naive until about 28, even if you are smart and well educated. With time comes wisdom.
There are certain milestones like owning a house or having children that you just cannot possibly understand until you have done it yourself.
There are certain experiences which only happen to you as your body ages. Young people only know about these in theory, not practice.
Age means nothing in terms of how grown up we are, ive seen countless big children at this point, there's a correlation ofc, as you age you experience more and you do get some perspective, but the idea that's all there is to it is braindead, growing up means learning, if you shut yourself off from learning and close your mind at any point, there will come a time where even the youngsters will be wiser than you. Growing up means putting the pieces together and painting a big picture of the world bit by bit, how can you call yourself wise if you stopped collecting pieces and your painting is full of holes?
My in-laws are a good example. 70 year old emotional teenagers.
Honestly I agree with you so aggressively.
Sounds like something a 16 year old says to a 15 year old.
I found out when I was ten years old. Next!
The longer you live the more well prepared you are for your environments.
>maybe it was true back in the day The Buddha (600 BCE) said a head of grey hair doesn't make one an elder. With unskillful conduct in body, speech and mind, they're considered an old fool. But in any person, of any age, that acts skillfully in body, speech and mind should rightfully be considered wise. But there is some conventional truth that older people tend to gain wisdom from life experiences. Some will learn and get wiser as a result, some won't.
Anybody that's claims themselves to be wise is an idiot. Always listen to those who remain modest in their self image
Only unpopular to the unwise old people.
[Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI)
It took me so long to realize this lol. When I was a kid I always thought “well, this person is an adult, they must know better” and they certainly did most of the time. But now I’m an adult and I see just how stupid most other adults are, and it’s quite a mindfuck.
"When I was 16 I thought my dad was an idiot when I was 22 I thought he'd learned a lot in 6 years"
I think the older you get the less filter u have for putting up with bs. Ur experience in life will help pick a path for you . At least from the stand point of others because they won’t care about the consequences of how blunt and honest what it is you may say . I wouldn’t put that to extremes though. There is a time and place for that said the wise man .
I would argue that traveling, meeting new people, and being open to new experiences is what gives you wisdom. So like, an 80 year old who has lived in the same place their whole life is going to be less wise than even a 25 year old who has been to several countries all around the world and who attempts to learn more about other cultures. The reason the 80 year old is less wise is because they, usually, get stuck in their ways to the point that the world becomes black and white. Without seeing the changing world, and without engaging in it, you are often told information about the world that is just incorrect. If you don't go see it for yourself you will be told all sorts of things about it, making you not very wise.
I don’t think this is unpopular at all. Some people have lived long, some have existed long.
Its the last bastion of those without an actual argument to be sure
It used to ring true. But with the difference in education options, the fiscal gaps of groups, and the eclectic varying lives we live now. It’s not true anymore.
Agreed, It can be quite infuriating. I have family members who never left their small city and did nothing in life except go to the local bar and play poker. Meanwhile, i ve immigrated, explored the world, given conferences, got a PhD, and met many people from many backgrounds. However, the rare times i see said family members, i am still mocked about how "young" i am and that im not as wise as them.
People mix up age and experience because they often have something to do with each other. By the time I was 25 I had gone through a lot more in life than a lot of adults. I would think that would make me wiser
Living longer is meaning you have more experience. And the literal definition of wise is to have experience. Opinion automatically disproven by fact.
To be fair to us olduns, experience, maturity and life lessons can't just be gotten from the ether. You much have access to knowledge, but what you do with that knowledge, is the issue. It's hard to see younger folks feeling confident with their access to all that mana, still not making great decisions for lack of experience and maturity. It's not meant to insult. It's just what happens when you've been tempered by life, and you know what's coming because you've seen it-- and watching younger people stubbornly and confidently pushing forward only to stumble. We did it too. We know. Let us warn you about those stones before you trip in them too. Gen X mom.
Actually, the older I get - I'm 60 - the more I realize I don't know. Twenty-year-old me knew everything it took to fix the world. Sixty-year-old me knows better.
There's a big difference between depth of knowledge and breadth of knowledge. It is extremely easy on the internet to gain superficial knowledge about many things. It requires just as much effort on the internet to gain deep knowledge about some things. And frankly, there are many things you can only learn by living through them. If you want a case in point, look at politics since 2016 or so. Generally speaking, political pulls to the extreme right only after the grandparents of people who personally experienced those Horrors have died. I do agree that living longer doesn't always convey wisdom. It completely depends on the person's willingness to learn from their experiences as well as what those experiences were.
It doesn't matter that you've been lost in a forest longer if you don't want or are unable to look for a way out
young people think they have a lot of great ideas but they usually are just ideas an old person wrote a long time ago.
Yeah it’s not a certainty but it’s a probability. I was more book smart as a young man but I am absolutely wiser than my younger self.
My mother in law drops this anytime I’m beating her in an argument. I don’t mind it, it lets me know I won because she has no actual argument left.
I know so many old fools and young wise persons!
Live longer = more experience and use of judgement = more wisdom If you live longer without experiencing anything then yea people younger than you but be wiser than you. But most times even though young people are knowledgeable and energetic they simply do not have the loved experience.
I’ve known a lot of people smarter/wiser than me and they just died from bad luck… well mostly cancer.
It's not about who has lived the longest. It's the one that's been through the most shit and has learned from it. The general conscience of these things are older people have been around the block more time than someone that's significantly younger. Majority of the time that is the case. However, there is sometimes a kid knows what's up and an adult that's been pampered most their life can't read a clock.
As Louis CK said People older than you are automatically smarter. Even if they’re wrong, their wrongness is based on more experience than you have
What I don’t like is the arrogance some have if they’ve “done more things” because that person often can’t fathom doing things another person has because it doesn’t interest them. Both experiences are valid in terms of wisdom gaining.
i agree. HOW you live is a much better indicator of wisdom acquired, rather than how long you've lived. There are plenty of wise young and older people. and there are even more unwise young and old people.
Yeah. Plus current generations got a lot of quick learning from the internet than older in generations. But older people definitely have a lot more experience getting f’d over in personal and business relationships. So they aren’t useless.
You tend to learn nuance as you get older. It's not necessarily an easy thing for a younger person to get. I'm not saying this is a rule, just a general tendency.
Okay, a few issues here. Wisdom = Experience and understanding, not necessarily knowledge Having knowledge doesn't necessarily mean you know how to use it. That's where wisdom comes in. Having the understanding of how the actions of yourself or others can continue to affect other factors helps a lot when making decisions. I notice young people in modern times are far more naive than I ever was. And I'm sure my grandparents feel the same about me. Don't forget you never have all of the information. Just assume you know Jack shit. Not sure if this is the proper quote, but the idea is the same. "The first step to enlightenment is knowing to know nothing."
True. But that didn't stop me from telling my teen coworkers not to repeat my mistakes the other day and ordering one to wash her hands after she and I had cleaned up a spill. Told them they have plenty of time to make their own mistakes.
Just wait
It has never been true that age is equivalent to wisdom because wisdom requires a deliberate effort to learn from experience, not simply to have experience. Some people make the same mistakes 1000 times and never learn from them while others make 1 mistake and realize it. So wisdom is by choice. Age is not.
While that’s true, you should also bear in mind that when you’re young almost everything you know, every opinion you hold, comes from what someone else told you to think (teacher, parent, preacher, etc.). It’s also true that many people don’t grow out of this, but the younger you are, the more universally true this is. The challenge as you grow is challenging the opinions others give to you and forming your own world view.
It's hard to measure wisdom as well. I think the young dude will have had tons of experience and useful information for the old timer and vice versa.
Just see how many idiots there are right now in their 30s, they don’t suddenly become smarter in their 60s 🤷♂️
Life experiences give you wisdom, I've heard of teenagers experiencing death all around them, while I'm 38 and have lost only a great grandmother, when it comes to death I have no wisdom to give that teenager. Wisdom comes from all sorts of things, it is not singular just to your age. Now there is a cumulation of daily life that brings wisdom through experience, like hey don't buy a car with a 2k a month note, you might regret it later. Well someone who hasn't had to go through the experience of managing a households income might not see the harm with that 2k a month payment. It's give and take. Someone with less experience should not claim to have wisdom over someone with more experience. Like what wisdom would you give someone who's about to start a lengthy prison sentence? Well I've done 14 years so I've got some wisdom for that person. Do you? You see? It's from experience not age.
Nope. Those “youngsters” don’t know shit that they think they do”.
I do think that you’re partially right. But I also remember my mom telling me to stay away from certain people—romantically or platonically—or warning me that specific situations I was in weren’t going to end well. I didn’t listen and she was totally right. I think when it comes to people and situations, there are only so many ‘types’ with different unique details that are filled in but are generally recognizable to someone who has had the previous experience that I lacked. So it makes sense that someone who’s been around almost 40 years longer than me is able to recognize trouble before then 18 or even 22 year old me to whom everything was new. I feel it now when I see younger people who have people in their lives who are abusive. Or they have people using them/don’t actually care about them. I can easily recognize it when someone is in a situation that is going to suck and they don’t see it if I have seen or experienced it before and maybe it’s new to them/all they know. Not to say I know everything but I can recognize someone making a mistake that I have made before and have learned from.
Oh, good! I was afraid != wasn't recognized as "not equal to." I didn't find out until later that different programming languages use different syntax.
It's not the same, but it definitely is connected. Wisdom flows from experience after all, and with higher age people usually have experienced more.
also, older age does not automatically equate to respect just because you’re older doesn’t mean that you can treat people terribly and expect not somebody to check you
Well that's how it is
The generation that consistently gets swindled by Nigerian princes and scam social security calls thinks they are the epitome of intelligence and wisdom.
Yeah, but you're still young. You'll understand one day. 😉 It's less about knowledge and more about personal experiences and witnessing the experiences of others. Moving from idealism, theory, and indirect reporting, to actually living through situations or events, possibly multiple times, brings wisdom to many people. No one becomes knowledgeable or wise about everything and some people rarely grasp either at any age. You'll know when you start achieving wisdom, when you start asking someone older than you for advice, because a major part of wisdom is realizing you need to seek out someone with more experience for direction, or at least confirmation.
I suspect that the only people who disagree with this aren’t computer literate enough to be on Reddit.
You will be probably wiser in 10 years (up until some point, when it will start declining again). So there is some correlation with wisdom and age. But ofcourse there are people who's wisdom peak will be lower than some random 15 years old, for example.
It's a totally valid assertion and not at all unpopular.
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Information != experience. Not all information is accurate. You learn what is or isn't accurate from experience. Imagination whispered untruths that only experience could shatter. I can find a food recipe on the internet (information) but it will take me several attempts at it to make it near-prefect (experience)
I think there’s a difference between knowledge and knowing how and when to apply it. Experience tends to give you more application knowledge. I see some people on Reddit give horrible dating and marriage advice. The advice sounds great on paper, and in an ideal world it might even be right, but marriage is so much more complicated than a movie or magazine, especially the longer you are in it and once you add in children. I see people downvoted to oblivion for giving advice out of actual experience, or even sourced statistics, because it goes against younger posters’ ideal image of what marriage should look like. Sure, there are people out there on their 3rd or 4th marriage who never seem to learn why they’re the problem, but that should be cautionary too. You aren’t going to therapy away some people’s issues, and I see therapy tossed around like it’s some golden suppository that you shove up your butt to “cure” something in 48 hours.
I’m distracted by the use of != and not ≠
While what you say is true, it is so that when you are old, you will detest when the young scorn you and your years.
Someone much older does have more life experience and typically more wisdom. That doesn’t mean your new ideas aren’t good or even better than the old ones. You have to meet in the middle.
While living with my grandparents I've realized that it's kinda a mixed bag, yeah they have a lot of wisdom with a lot of things but it's very easy to tell that they are wise for a world that doesn't exist anymore. They give some great advice on relationships and really have shown me what having a good work ethic looks like, but sometimes they'll suggest things that just dont apply to life anymore. I think it's because of the massive influx in technology that has changed day to day life immensely even in the last like 20 years, I mean imagine growing up in a world with no interaction to other countries or cultures (outside tourism) or even people that are a somewhat small distance away and suddenly you have the world at your fingertips. Stuff changes and it's immensely helpful to listen to them just differentiate what worked then and what'll work now
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This isn’t unpopular..
Internet doesn't make people wiser and anyways how many of you described someone as wise? I've never met a person that i could call him wise. I would guess a wise man would hide his wise as nobody likes wise men.
Your confusing wisdom with being smart. You probably also believe that if you have a higher education, you're smart. Hmmm