Yesterday I wrote about the importance of writing down inspirational ideas that come to mind. Whether you end up acting on it or not, at least you will have a record of what it was in the first place!

Today, I wanted to expand this out a little more – to the season of clarity.

As I have gotten older and been through a few different seasons of life now, I have realized that each season has its challenges and its graces.

I can look back and remember times in my life where I felt that I had achieved great clarity specific to that season. Usually it came at the end of a season I had just struggled through. I had wrestled with the issues because they were my life, and so I had arrived at understanding that was unique.

At the time, I thought, “Wow, I think I really understand this and have some great perspective on it! I’m sure I will always have such spectacular and specialized knowledge about (whatever).”

Well, it turns out that our seasons change. And therefore, so does our sense of seasonal clarity.

How many generations of high schoolers have lamented that their parents don’t respect them or understand what it’s like to be them?

Yet, we parents continue to insist that we know exactly what it’s like to be high school students!

Yes, it is true that we as parents have an idea, a memory, of what it’s like to be a student. But since we’ve been away from it for so long, we have lost the clarity that we may once have had.

After all, every season of life is extraordinarily nuanced. No one can assume that since they were a high school student in the 90’s at such and such a high school, that they have any meaningful clue as to what it’s like to be a high school student in 2019 at this high school.

Yes, there are a lot of similarities, but not so many that the parent can assume they have extraordinary clarity on their child’s issues just because they once went to high school.

New parents with a baby go through a similar thing. The new grandparents have a TON of wisdom and experience that is so helpful to new parents. But, raising kids in 2019 is a bit different from raising kids in 1985.

Similarly, I once had really great advice and perspective to offer premed and medical students. But things are quite a bit different now than they were for me. I can still offer general wisdom, which is super important, but not the clear, nuanced advice that I once had when I was closer to that world.

So, my encouragement for us is two-fold:

1. We need to recognize our seasons of clarity and capitalize on them. We are uniquely positioned to help people who are going through what we just went through. Write a book. Mentor someone. You do have something special to offer!
2. We should be humble about how we impart your wisdom to others who are in different seasons – even if we have been there before. Our input is still valuable, but it seems that the clarity atrophies a bit with time.

I hope that I’m communicating this clearly. It makes sense in my head better than it might be coming out in this post.

To summarize, there is extreme value in the wisdom of experience and I personally seek it out all the time.

Yet, I have also seen those with the wisdom of experience alienate younger people because their dogmatism doesn’t account for the changes that might have occurred in the decades since they were in the others’ position.

Ultimately, we all need to operate with a strong sense of truth and grace.