By+Claudia+Hammond

Wisdom is something thats hard to define and yet somehow we know it when we see it. The wise people stay calm in a crisis. They can step back and see the bigger picture. Theyre thoughtful and self-reflective. They recognise the limits of their own knowledge， consider alternative perspectives， and remember that the world is always changing.

Wisdom mustnt be confused with intelligence. Although intelligence helps， you can be intelligent without being wise. The wise people tolerate uncertainty and remain optimistic that even tricky problems do have solutions. They can judge what is true or right. Its quite a list.

So， how do you become wiser？ Psychologists have been studying wisdom for decades， and they have good news for us. We can all make efforts to be wiser and we might even succeed.

The reasons that we might want to follow their advice go beyond the obvious benefit of gaining wisdom to make good decisions. Wise reasoning is associated with a whole lot of1） positives： higher life satisfaction， fewer negative feelings， better relationships and less depressive rumination2）， according to Igor Grossman of the University of Waterloo in Canada. He and his colleagues even found evidence that the wisest people might live longer. The wiser people were， the higher their levels of well-being， particularly as they got older. Intelligence made no difference to well-being， probably because IQ levels dont reflect a persons ability to foster good relationships or make decisions in everyday life.

Grossman is convinced that wisdom is not simply a stable trait that you either possess or dont. If true， this is good news. It means that at least were wise some of the time.

Think back to yesterday. What was the most challenging situation you faced in your day？ And how did you work out what to do？ Grossman put questions like this to the participants in his recent study. People wrote about being late for meetings because of the traffic or the arguments they had with families and colleagues. The researchers examined their styles of reasoning in order to assess their wisdom. Did they recognise that their knowledge was limited？ Did they see any positives in what seemed on the face of it to be a negative situation？ He found that some people appeared to be wise sages in one situation， but not in another.

So why the difference in different situations？ People were wiser when they were with their friends. It made them more likely to consider the bigger picture， to think of other perspectives and to recognise the limits of their own knowledge. When people were alone they seemed to get so involved in a situation that they didnt even think about alternatives.

This means wisdom might be more common than we think. “We are possibly all capable of some aspect of wisdom. Its just not all the time，” says Grossman.

Some people still displayed more wisdom than others and some were more foolish， but not across every situation. This provides hope. If we can be wise sometimes， maybe we can learn to be wise more often. And the finding that wise reasoning improves with age suggests we can get better at it.

The question is how to do it. For Cornell University psychologist Robert Sternberg， wisdom is all about balance. A wise person is able to complete a mental juggling3） act—to balance the short-term with the long-term， self-interest with the interests of others， while considering all the options—adapting to the current situation， trying to shape it or looking for a new situation.

Following Sternbergs model， what you need to do is to remember to work out what all the different interests are in a given dilemma， both in the short and long-term and to pay attention to the changing environment and how it might be shaped.

In a kind of school of wisdom， Grossman has experimented with different strategies in the lab. People were taught to take a different perspective by imagining they were taking a birds-eye-view of the situation or as if they were watching events as a fly on the wall. The idea is to try to distance yourself from the immediate experience. Even talking about yourself in the third person can help. So when I have a dilemma， I should be asking， what would Claudia do？

Sometimes we could take it a step further than speaking in the third person and actually ask someone else what they think we should do. We are often wiser about other peoples lives than about our own. One of my favourite studies on time perception involves the planning fallacy4）， the mistake that many of us make when we think we can finish a job far more quickly than we really can. Whether its attempting to redecorate your living room in a day or finishing a work project in an evening， were often disappointed when we fail. We tend to think that in the future well have more time because well be better-organised versions of ourselves. Sadly we probably wont be.

But although were bad at judging our own time-frames， were much better at working out other peoples. In one study， students were asked to estimate when they were likely to finish an assignment and when other students would finish theirs. They were far better at guessing other peoples timings， because they took into account unpredictable interruptions such as getting flu or coming home to find the washing machine has flooded the kitchen. When it comes to our own lives， our natural optimism seems to stop us factoring in potential problems.

So can you set out to be wise？ Yes， but there are an awful lot of factors to remember. You need to take into account that people will have different goals， priorities and responses to your own， across the short- and long-term. If you can juggle all that， you probably are showing wisdom. But the complexity shouldnt stop us from trying. As Grossman told me， “Its not that you suddenly become the next Buddha， but you do become a little bit wiser.”

. New Oriental English

俗话说：“当局者迷，旁观者清。”在我们追求智慧之时，这句话也同样适用。智慧关乎选择。我们有时做出一些愚蠢的决定，并非是因为我们缺乏智慧，而是因为我们未能从当时的情境中抽身，从更客观、理性的角度看待问题。所以，智慧其实离你并不遥远，你如果想变得更有智慧，不妨从化身第三者开始。

智慧难以定义，但我们一旦见到，便可确定这就是智慧。智慧之人能在危机关头保持镇定。他们能后退一步，纵览全局。他们考虑周全，自我反思，承认自身学识有限，广纳不同观点，并牢记世界总在变化。

智慧与智力不可混为一谈。尽管智力很有用处，但你可能很聪明，却不一定有智慧。智慧之人可以容忍不确定因素，保持乐观，相信再棘手的问题也总归有解决的办法。他们能明辨是非真假。其优点实在太多。

那么，怎样才能更有智慧呢？几十年来，心理学家们一直在研究智慧，并给我们带来了好消息：我们都可以为更有智慧而努力，或许最终能取得成功。

我们可能想采纳他们的建议，不仅是因为增长智慧明显有助于我们做出好的决定。来自加拿大滑铁卢大学的伊戈尔·格罗斯曼认为，审慎的推理活动与许多积极因素息息相关：生活满意度更高、负面情绪更少、人际关系更好、抑郁沉思更少。格罗斯曼及其同事甚至发现了证据，表明最有智慧的人可能寿命更长。人越是富有智慧，幸福指数越高，年长时尤甚。而智力则无关幸福，或许是因为智商水平并不能反映出人们在日常生活中建立良好人际关系或做出决定的能力。……