Knowledge is really just the accumulation of all the information that we receive in our mind. It is purely intellectual. It's regurgitation of information that we learn. But wisdom is gathering the knowledge and then actually applying it. I'm Raley Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw and fielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together.
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of every Really Good Cry.
I hope you've had such a wonderful week.
You know, earlier this week, I started to feel a little bit overwhelmed with the amount of information that we as humans have access to. I was trying to find a course that I wanted to do, and I realized there were just so many places that did the courses, and then there was online information about it, and then there was things on social media, and then it just felt too overwhelming, and I decided that I didn't want to commit to anything and don't want to apply for anything because I.
Just know what to pick.
And honestly, at times, I think it is just way too much information that we have access to, and the problem is also that it conflicts so much. Right It's like one place will tell you to eat avocados, another place will tell you that avocados are really bad for you.
And that's just the simplest things.
There is just so much information that is thrown at us on a daily basis. You can literally scroll through social media or speak to my new bff chat dpt or as we in the office call her Gabby princessa Tiara, that is actually what we call her, and you can learn everything from how to hack a phone to how to make a missionin star Worthy Salad, and literally a couple of minutes, you can feel like an expert in
a couple of minutes. And so I feel like we live in this world where it's never been easier to feel like an expert that we don't actually know much about, and to feel like an expert on something we haven't really lived.
We end up.
Treating knowledge like a status symbol, something to collect or flaun to attach to our identity. And I personally can hold my hands up and say that has definitely been me. But I was actually recently listening to this podcast where they were discussing the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and they said this one sentence that sparked my thought for this entire episode, that knowledge puffs up and wisdom builds up.
And I sat with that sentence for a little bit, and so many thoughts came to my mind, like how this wellness and self help space teaches us so much, and it's so beautiful that we have access to all these quotes on a regular basis, Like my for you page is often filled ninety percent with really great quotes that make me think, or make me more thoughtful, or make me more compassionate, or help me grow in some way. And so we actually have the ability to look at
so much. But that learning can sometimes just become a crutch, a distraction from actually doing the real work. So we end up thinking we know better, but we don't end up actually doing better. We end up constantly consuming, consuming, consuming, which makes us think, oh, we're obviously learning, which means we're obviously doing good by learning these things, but we're really digesting and putting these things into practice into our life.
And then I started reflecting, and when I first started creating content, and I entered this wellness space, and I felt this intense pressure to know everything.
I didn't really do that well at school.
I got quiet catastrophic grades, and I really struggled with conventional learning, and for a while I felt like I really carried that deep insecurity about that. So once I actually found a space that I was interested in and I was thriving in and that I loved to learn about,
I almost overcorrected. I consumed books and podcasts and workshops and science and scripture not just to learn, but to prove things, to prove that I was worthy of having a voice, to prove that I deserve to be in this space, to prove I guess also to myself that I deserve to be here. And I wasn't learning to live it. I was learning to show that I knew it.
And there's such different things from that time. I feel like I've really had to work hard on not trying to prove myself, not trying to prove my intelligence or to keep trying to accumulate knowledge for the sake of show, but instead learning it, to live it and share it through who I am, not what I know. Knowledge is really just the accumulation of all the information that we receive in our mind. It is purely intellectual. It's regurgitation
of information that we learn. But wisdom is gathering the knowledge and then actually applying it. Knowledge tells you what to do, but wisdom is when you embody it through action, through your relationships, and through your choices, especially in the times when no one is watching. It was such a great reminder to me that it is not about how much that you've learnt in your life, but about what
you've actually lived. I think accumulating knowledge actually ends up feeling the ego, because when you think about it being intellectual, or when you feel like you know a lot, you can end up feeling superior to people who don't.
Know that information.
It can create this I know more than other situation in your own mind, and we as humans are always trying to find reasons to superior. It's like my race is better than yours, my religion's better than yours, what my mind knows is better than your mind, and we always try and create a hierarchy or a way of feeling better about ourselves through something. And I think knowledge
and intellect ends up being one of those things. I remember my teacher rather Thanswami once said this, and I have shared this one line in pretty much every interview that I've done because it really stuck with me.
He said that knowledge is useless unless it's.
Shared, and I'd actually add to that that not just shared in words, but in how you live. And it's funny because I was thinking about it, and everything that we actually learn, we obviously are learning from other people or a book or or even Instagram, and yet we end up holding on to it or holding it within us like it's our information. As soon as I've heard it, I own it, like we created it. But actually, nothing
is new. Nothing is actually new in this world. Everything already exists ideas, words, theories, whether it exists in the depth sub scriptures that people don't know about yet or in the mind of someone that's just been unspoken most things, or I think everything has already existed, and so everything we learn is learnt from somewhere, from nature, from our parents,
from teachers, from books, from songs. But yet this desire to be the best or be original and unique and things being mine take over the actual information and actually using it rather than owning it. Really, when you let knowledge flow through you and you become a vessel for it rather than the owner of it, and you end up pouring it into how you love, how you lead, and how you show up. That is when it turns
into wisdom. It's actually just like in our body, when food is undigested in the stomach it turns into tuxins, or when thoughts are left too long in the mind it can cause anxiety. And in the same way, knowledge is not supposed to just sit in us and be stagnant and be held captive within us, but it's meant to be utilized as a tool to serve other people and ourselves. Knowledge is reading them up, and wisdom is walking in the path. Knowledge fills them, but wisdom transforms
the heart and it shows itself through action. I think I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I was reading Ryan Holiday's book The Daily Stoic, and I've really been enjoying seeing the similarities and comparisons actually to Vadic literature and Stoicism. There is so much similarity between them, and the Stoics actually speak about this too. Marcus Aurelius, this Roman emperor and philosopher, asked the question from what
source do you spring? What power fuels you? And what great question to reflect on a regular basis, because if your fuel is ego, you're trying to prove, perform, accumulate, then you might become clever, but you will not become wise. Wisdom in both stoic and veadic traditions is action born of self mastery.
It's not about what you say. It's about how you live.
It's not about having the right ideas, but it's about knowing what to do with them and actually doing it. You become what you live, not what you learn. And I think that's really important because it is so easy to feel like you know a lot just by.
What you read.
It's so easy to know that, oh, I should be eating well, but am I actually going to put them into practice by buying the right ingredients, by learning how to cook, by meal planning and prepping my week, so I end up eating those things. Such a simple thing that it applies to but it applies like that in every situation. It's like when they make the joke of doctors knowing that smoking is bad for you, but they
still smoke. You know, they see it the most that it's not good for you, but you still do it. So it's one thing about knowing all the things that you should be doing or all the things that you want to be doing that make you a better person, or that make your physical body better or your mental state better, or that are good for other people, or how to be better in a relationship. You can read all the books, but how are you putting it into practice?
So I started to asking myself a couple of questions to really differentiate whether I'm living from a place of wisdom or from a place of knowledge and ego. Those questions are number one, am I trying to impress or express?
And two?
Am I using knowledge to connect or control? Those two questions have helped me to always differentiate what I'm living from. Am I living from a place of ego? Or am I living from a place of wisdom and wanting to share? So the two were am I trying to impress or to express? And am I using knowledge to connect or to control? So simple, but you can learn so much
about yourself by answering those questions. And if you're like me, and you realized, damn, I answered those questions and I'm not in my wisdom era right now, but I really want to be. I actually just started doing small things to help me get there, one of which was picking one teaching to live by this week. Less is more, digest, absorb and churn it. So instead of saving like ten podcasts or screenshots of quotes and reading all these things, choose one idea, like I just did from the podcast
that I heard. I heard that one sentence and it inspired this whole podcast because I really thought about it for that full week. So find one thing, one idea that resonated with you and discuss it. Think about how you can apply it into your life, share it with others, and put it into practice. An example of that is easy,
something like gratitude. We read quotes on gratitude all day and hear about it, but actually writing down things you're grateful for daily, or expressing gratitude to someone every single day, that is putting it into practice. If it's something like be present, how much do you'd hear be present? Just be present in the moment, Well, try leaving your phone in another room during a meal, or make eye contact
when you're speaking to someone. Think about how you can take that information and make it practical in your life and put it into practice. Are Vada and Vedic text actually emphasize the value of silence and Smariner reflection, and so after learning something new, just taking him a five minutes of quiet to ask how does this change me? How can I integrate this into my life? And where does it apply in my life? Just simply taking a moment to pause after hearing something or reading something can
make such a difference. I've learned to do that with my friends lately, when we're having a conversation and so much comes out of them, and I take a moment to reflect and write down what are the things that I learned in that conversation, What were the things that I feel I want to expand on or explore, What were the things that make me feel uncomfortable? And why really exploring the conversation you're having rather than just being half present and forgetting them the moment you leave them.
There's so much we can learn if you're just there. There's so much you can learn if you're just noticing, and especially if you're noticing to learn, it's really different from being present just to hear when you're there to actually learn from a situation. When I go up for a walk, okay, if I'm trying to really be present and learn from nature. I'll see so much more. My eyes will notice so much more. But if I'm out there just to enjoy, I probably won't. I've probably just
wander through. But this is really nice. But when you're choosing to see the world from a point of learning and digesting and processing, you just see the world so differently. Now, I know this actually feels like such a small topic, but at the same time, it really does change the way that we live life and experience it. We can go our whole lives not really living life, and I don't really want that for us. To be honest, this
is what this podcast is about. It's trying to help us see the world in a different way, help us to create these habits and rituals and practices that actually help us grow into better people, into the people that
we want to be. So these small mind shifts, even though they seem extremely small, they're doing the needful and helping us to grow not just for ourselves but for the people around us too, and to just be living more authentically, which is what I think we all want to be doing in our life.
So I hope this conversation was useful.
I hope these random reflections that I had from that one sentence ends up being beneficial to your ears and to your heart too, And I hope that you put these things into practice. Read to quote, think about how you can apply it, and sending us so much love for this week.
Hope it's more intentional and.
You feel more present and you learn so much more just by changing the way that you're viewing the world. Thanks so much for listening and sending up so much love.