I learned basic car repair in college after buying a beat up old car for $250. Armed with a repair manual and a basic tool set from Sears, I took on all manner of simple repairs. Along the way, I learned quite a few lessons. One of the most important happened when I was replacing a corroded set of battery cables that weren’t able to maintain a good connection any longer. When the time came to reconnect the battery, I put the cables on and was greeted with huge sparks as my cables melted off. After disconnecting the cables, I ran to the store and replaced them with larger gauge ones, figuring that the problem had been that they were simply too small. The new cables also sparked and melted when I connected them to the battery. Confused, I consulted with a more knowledgeable friend who watched me connect a third set of cables. When I went to hook up the battery, he stopped me and pointed out that I was putting the battery on backward. Surprised, I argued with him that the electricity must come out of the side marked “-“ because in every science class I had ever taken the negative referred to electrons, thus the negative side must be the side with electricity. He laughed and explained that the “+” on car batteries is always the electrically charged terminal. That day, I learned that you should never hook up a battery backwards because it resulted in a ton of extra repair work. I also learned an important lesson about being what the Bible calls: “Wise in your own sight.” The phrase refers to the tendency folks have to looking at the world and simply assuming that they know what is wise and best. This makes sense because no one would hold an opinion or thought if they suspected it to be wrong. However, there is a great deal of wisdom to be found in seeking the advice, input, or feedback of folks who have an outside perspective or a proven track record of successfully navigating similar situations. Unfortunately, we often do what I did with the battery: assume we know better and proceed to never question our assumptions, even when they obviously aren’t working. It’s easy to wind up in a situation in your relationships, work, finances, etc. where the way you have handled a problem simply doesn’t work, but you are so certain that it should, so you keep making the same mistake over and over again. I’ve talked to many married couples who have the same argument over and over and over again for years. They say the same things to each other. They employ the same emotional responses. They even say the same words every time. It doesn’t work, but they keep doing it and the problem keeps getting worse. I’ve watched people attempt to manage their weight by jumping from fad diet to fad diet, each time recognizing that the easy gimmick either doesn’t work or isn’t sustainable before jumping to the next one. It’s so easy to get stuck in a mental rut, where we continuously work toward a solution that doesn’t work. The problem in those instances is that we don’t question our own assumptions. We never stop and ask, ‘Am I wrong?’ The solution is humility. We must recognize that we might not know what we are talking about. Finding people who are successful or wise is the key to overcoming our “wisdom in our own eyes.” The book of Proverbs puts it best, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers, they succeed.” Sometimes, the wisest approach to life is seeking the perspective of someone wiser than oneself.
