It seems to me that America is engorged with knowledge while simultaneously being starved for wisdom.

My 77 year old, Alzheimer’s-ridden,  father-in-law died this morning. His last month included two hospitalizations and myriad medical tests and procedures mostly designed to diagnose potential maladies that the family would not have elected to treat, even if we’d been able to isolate the pathology. In fact, it’s highly likely (but not necessarily bad) that his death was hastened by medicine’s attempt to diagnose him rather than let him be.

Mulling this experience over in my mind, I’ve concluded that we have way too much knowledge. We know how to isolate, test, program and formulate. But we don’t necessarily know how to make a good decision with the information we have.

Wisdom can’t be systematized. The knowledge system may call for running this test, making this differential diagnosis, then proceeding with a certain course of treatment followed by more tests. It’s all science. But wisdom is art. It’s knowing when to say “that’s enough.” It’s looking at life from the end view—beginning with the end in mind, as Covey has said. It’s looking at life from a view beyond this world and saying—there is a time for everything under the sun: a time to live, and a time to die.

There will always be people seeking to gain more knowledge. May you and I be counted among those who seek wisdom, so we can help them know what to do with it.