What is it that you really wish to achieve in life? A lot of people hanker after traditional concepts of success such as material wealth and possessions, power, influence and respect etc. but in reality are trying to seek happiness. The assets mentioned above are only temporarily tangible to you and are available to you on borrowed time. They give a false sense of empowerment but are actually a figment of your imagination. They are unreal and illusory. And therefore a fundamental choice one needs to make in life is to choose wisdom. Wisdom is a word traditionally used for older people, the wise grey heads of society. However, wisdom is not something that manifests with the passing years. Older people may certainly be better able to put things in perspective than the younger generation, but most never put their life experience to good use. And yet the way someone’s life at any age turns out, generally depends on making informed wise choices. Wisdom is also often confused with knowledge! When actually it is the internal capacity to differentiate between the knowable and the unknowable, what can and cannot be changed, between limitlessness and real limitations! It is the ability to combine the knowledge and information of the world and that gained through life experience and bringing your choices to fruition in line with your own higher purpose and your fundamental value systems.

So what really is wisdom, exactly? I firmly believe that it means, being in touch with your consciousness. Everyone in their lives, reach a point, when serendipitously or through conscious concerted efforts, you have the opportunity to be at the brink of an epiphany, an instant or growing realisation, that it is time to stop taking things at face value and to just believe what is being thrown at you. That is the time, when you do have the potential to redefine yourself, moult your skin, and remove the excess baggage that wears you down to make positive choices. That is the wisdom moment!

Wisdom is defined by the following characteristics:

·        The burning desire to be real and free of illusions.

·        To have the courage and conviction to step out of your comfort zone and at the same time always act with integrity.

·        To understand that integrity is a product of humility and courage.

·        To know that Integrity is a prerequisite to wisdom, equanimity and abundance mentality.

·        The need to feel internally satiated and fulfilled in an unconditional way.

·        The ability to go beyond superficial worldly satisfactions and to surpass the hierarchy of needs (from food, clothing, shelter, sexual gratification and creativity) towards divine and spiritual inspiration.

Seeking wisdom leads to wise choices. For example, when you are fearful, to not trust the voice of fear, when you are in a situation of turmoil, to find a path towards tranquillity and homeostasis to bring order, when faced with an angry situation, to make no decision until the anger has receded, when in a situation of conflict with your opposition, to consider the paradigm of those who have a difference of opinion with you, when you disagree with someone and are tempted to criticise negatively someone else, to see if what you hate in them is infesting yourself as well, etc. When you do this, you are already choosing a path towards freedom, wisdom, pure awareness and most certainly – fulfilment and hence attainment. This unsurprisingly brings rewards of lasting nature such as happiness and satisfaction. So we can enjoy life in this moment we are graced with while appreciating its inherent fragility, we can make intuitively well informed decisions in a blink, even while living in an inescapable state of uncertainty, and we can have a crucial opportunity for growth and learning as human beings to maximally realise our true potentiality To create this milieu, is true wisdom! But the question is, are we really ready to choose?

Dr Manpreet Gulati, CEO, Lycahealthcare and Westminster Healthcare.