Type your key words and voila, a list of options pops up, as if ordered. Now you’re surfing but hopefully not drowning—to a point that you can’t decide. "Which one will I source?" Or you just take them all!
This is pretty evident in my students’ research papers. They really don’t scrutinize internet information anymore. They just copy and paste—because they’re probably confused, unsure of what to take or refuse. The result? A hodge-podge submission! This teacher has no choice at times but to ask for a rewrite. Makes you ask, have they learned anything?
Older folks are equally guilty. Perennially glued to FB and other social media, our precious hours fly away with endless scrolling, some of them trash and fakes.
Tiring, ain't it? This information overload. Just a barrage of words and concepts pecking at our brains, blurring our vision, and causing back pains. For what? Knowledge that's here today then soon forgotten? Because they're just too much! How could anyone remember ideas swooping and swimming in the vast digital ocean?
When does one say, "Enough!"?
For a lot of people, more knowledge means more open doors. Ever wonder why nowadays, more and more young professionals are enrolling in post-graduate courses?
For example, doctors are not content just being medics. (In my current online post-grad class are four doctors.) They see the need to climb higher in their own health organizations.
"Competition is stiff." "It's a ticket to higher positions." The magic word "boss" with its perks beckon.
Whatever their reasons, I salute them. But how stressful. Learning is a continuous process so this too must be handled wisely. Got to be choosy!
Learn from one who's been there, done that. Solomon—said to be the wisest man who ever lived—wrote:
Ecclesiastes 1:18 "For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Verse 14 "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind."
In today-speak, he seems to be conveying:
"I Googled every possible idea worth knowing. Yeah I got so smart, learned heaps. Yet all those knowledge is too tough to handle. How do I apply them? Oh what responsibility! Man, I'm exhausted! Why am I even doing this?"
Yet we need wisdom, right? Notice: Solomon said, "in much wisdom is much vexation." It's frustrating to be pregnant with ideas and not have the power to birth or concretize all of them.
It's the "much" word! It means over and above what is normal. More than what you need. It's like drowning in mountains of cash and blings and possessions that you don't know anymore what else to acquire to make you happier or more content.
Maybe we only need "enough knowledge and wisdom". Wisdom for the here and now, wisdom for what matters—so we can be productive and achieve results for the tasks at hand.
We've met or known people in high places. Pedigreed. Admired for their genius. Knowledgeable about diverse topics. Yet many of them have egos higher than Mount Everest. Or they suck at relationships—their children or spouses the first casualties of their pride or arrogance.
How could those so knowledgeable or accomplished fail, and be so clueless about what matters most? A lot of knowledge is not the key. Wisdom is.
Because wisdom is just that: the right use of what we know! What we learn, we apply, not just store in our brains. So it's not really a warehouse-full of knowledge we should covet. We need to be choosy. Search for the right information, wrap your brain around them, master them, and decide wisely.
Psalm 90:12 "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Yet this is the key: "The fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," Proverbs 9:10.
You won’t go wrong with the Word of God—your default source of life lessons and guidance as you surf life’s tempests, be they minute or gigantic.
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