Smooth Ocean Stones and Life

I love picking up the rounded stones at low tide in the evenings.

They are smoothed like jeweled gems;

all the years of being pounded by waves and rolled on the ocean bottom.  They go from sharp edged stones to wise old smoothies.

And life has a way of shaping young reckless idealistic impetuous enthusiasm into slower methodical cautious, maybe even defensive  thinking.

Look how rare for a U.S. President to be elected in his 40’s. Why? It doesn’t take that long to work up the ranks. Are we afraid because they have a finger on the nuclear arsenal?

Do we want someone who has been scarred enough times to learn the high cost of mistakes? Do we trust that grandfatherly wisdom that may lack youthful enthusiasm, but can has been there done that?

Do we trust someone who doesn’t have to try something to prove them selves.

Success in Life and Leadership has to be a balance of impetuous enthusiasm and rational evaluation; the gas and the brake or the gas full on with a feathered brake pedal?

How do you balance knowledge, wisdom and unbridled enthusiasm?

Let’s throw in emotional balance. We often make decisions from a personality that we don’t really control. It takes a long time to understand our strengths and weaknesses, our preferences and biases

It takes a long time to develop into a person who makes wise decisions.

It takes a long time to make a smoothed rounded ocean stone.