#sacrates

[npcstyle]

#repost #sacrates #philosophy #loa #mindfulness

[ericdemeusy-blog]

The Secret of Success

A young man asked Socrates, an ancient Greek philosopher, the secret of Success. Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met.

Socrates asked the young man to walk with him toward the river.

When the water got up to their necks, Socrates took the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water. The man struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him under water until he started turning blue.

The young man struggled hard and finally managed to get up. The first thing he did was to gasp and take a deep breath.

Socrates asked, “What did you want the most when you were under the water?”

The man replied “Air”.

Socrates said: “That’s the most secret to success. When you want success as badly as you want air, you will get it. There is no other secret”.

[ethan-fletcher]

I Wish I Knew

"At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know."  - Socrates. If I could have the wisdom of Socrates, I could be one of the wisest men of my generation. Instead, I think I possess more knowledge than what I do, this is my shortcoming. In order to first have knowledge we must recognize that we do not already possess it. 

Wisdom cannot be had without first gathering a great deal of knowledge, knowledge in itself is useless without wisdom. Many great people are intelligent to great lengths but do not use what they know, to any great cause. Ted Kaczyinski (Unabomber) was a man of great intelligence, in fact, there were people who said he was possibly the smartest man of his time. Instead of putting his knowledge to work and making a difference in the world, he used it to cause destruction and destroy peoples lives. While some of Kaczyinski's writings could have been considered profound, he lost all credibility by attempting to take matters into his own hands. Maybe his cause was not wrong and maybe he was right about his philosophies but he was lacking wisdom.

We can never know everything there is to know, we always have more to learn. Knowing this should make us feel insignificant. With all the knowledge at our fingertips, often we forget that the next guy knows just as much as us.