Sometimes Age Comes Alone
March 23rd, 2007 by James SchellmanHave you ever heard the comment or seen the quote, “To be old and wise… One must first be young and stupid”? This appears to be a profound statement, like one you would hear from the mouth of Ghandi himself. It suggests and gives hope to the fact that if you are young and stupid, and you hang in long enough, you will arrive and grow wise with age. This quote, however, can be misleading and one day a person can wake up and find that life has left them behind. Let me explain further.
Growth is not an automatic process. You do not go to bed at night, lay down, fall asleep, and wake up the next day a little farther ahead than you were yesterday. Here is another example: If you take a dollar and put it in your piggy bank. Day by day you will not find that it grows suddenly to $1.01, $1.02, $1.03, etc. No by itself that dollar does not grow, nor will you just automatically grow in life either. So how do you grow?
Growth needs to be a daily process if you are to mature and become wise. Just like the dollar, if you would like to see it make a profit for you, then you must strategically invest the dollar into a money market or mutual fund and have conscience involvement. Like the dollar if you will strategically invest into your life daily, multiplied with conscience involvement to grow, you will find that you will one day be mature and wise. For some individuals, sadly, they will find that sometimes age comes alone.


I am writing to help leaders find their voice of influence. Plus, I like to inspire others to be their best. 




[…] I wrote a blog a while back that was motivated by an older gentleman who said to me, “To be old and wise… One must first be young and stupid” He was offended because I called him out for saying one thing and doing another. He was embarrassed and tried to insult me by saying this. […]
Posted by: Some Friendly Advice For Gen-Y | JamesSchellman.com | May 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 amGood ideas. Added links on my site
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