Tomato Time

Ages ago I wrote a Top Tip about Bob Mortimer and tomatoes. It was something about his mother only ever buying enough tomatoes for one day. 

If she only bought three then she would have a reason to go out the next day and buy more tomatoes. It’s nice to have something to motivate you for the next day.

Bob uttered the immortal line “What’s the tomato in your life?”

I was thinking about that line because tomatoes were in the news every day not so long ago. I don't know if you remember but it was on every bulletin.

There was even a chap in our Sainsbury’s taking photos of the tomatoes. Or rather where they should be. They were in the headlines but not on the shelves. 

I think Bob’s mother passed away a good few years ago. I dread to think how she’d have coped with all the empty racks and such uncertainty about her favourite fruit.

Strange Fruit

Here’s a thing about that last sentence. Tomatoes are a fruit and not a vegetable. 

I’m sure you already knew that. It’s one of those little known facts that’s meant to be a “Did you know” thing but that absolutely everybody already knows. 

And that leads us bang into this week’s theme: knowledge. And specifically the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

A pithy description of the difference between knowledge and wisdom is “knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”

It's an old phrase but I saw it on Twitter from the very brilliant Andy Cope. 

Knowledge comes first, but it’s really rather pointless without the wisdom to know what to do with it.

There's Nothing Wrong Here

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World there’s a passage that describes how all the newborn babies in the novel sleep in a room where information is piped in through the night. It’s called (quickly checks Google) sleep learning or hypnopeadia. When the information is piped through . . . 

Okay, what on earth am I doing? Aldous Huxley’s a splendid writer. Rather than explain the passage I’ll share his words here.

*******

(A small boy asleep on his right side, the right arm stuck out, the right hand hanging limp over the edge of the bed. Through a round grating in the side of a box a voice speaks softly.

“The Nile is the longest river in Africa and the second in length of all the rivers of the globe. Although falling short of the length of the Mississippi-Missouri, the Nile is at the head of all rivers as regards the length of its basin, which extends through 35 degrees of latitude …”

At breakfast the next morning, “Tommy,” someone says, “do you know which is the longest river in Africa?” A shaking of the head. “But don’t you remember something that begins: The Nile is the …”

“The – Nile – is – the – longest – river – in – Africa – and – the – second -in – length – of – all – the – rivers – of – the – globe …” The words come rushing out. “Although – falling – short – of …”

“Well now, which is the longest river in Africa?"

The eyes are blank. “I don’t know.”

“But the Nile, Tommy.”

“The – Nile – is – the – longest – river – in – Africa – and – second …”

“Then which river is the longest, Tommy?”

Tommy burst into tears. “I don’t know,” he howls.)

That howl, the Director made it plain, discouraged the earliest investigators. The experiments were abandoned. No further attempt was made to teach children the length of the Nile in their sleep. Quite rightly. You can’t learn a science unless you know what it’s all about.

*********

You can’t exercise wisdom without knowledge, for sure, but knowledge on its own is useless. It’s vital that they’re used together.

Wise Men Say

It’s a useful distinction to remind ourselves about because so very often when we’re facing a challenge we forget that we already know what to do. We forget that we’ve already risen to similar challenges before. Using knowledge that we’ve already gained.

The older I get, the amount of times I hear a fact and think “I used to know that” is getting quite painful.

But very often we do already have the knowledge we need, we are aware of it and it is close to hand. The problem isn’t the lack of knowledge. The irritant is that somehow we’ve forgotten how to apply it properly. We’ve forgotten to be wise.

That’s why we go out and buy the newest diet book forgetting that we really do already know what to do. And already have a shelf full of them!

It takes time and effort to reflect and remember that we’ve already got the knowledge. And then it takes energy and commitment to recall that we also have the wisdom to use it well.

Perfect Circle 

I was speaking with a client a few weeks ago and a few challenges at work had mounted. We’ve worked together in different ways for years so a lot of the current challenges were really very similar to earlier problems. 

And therefore they already had a lot of the answers. They had knowledge from earlier episodes that had already served them well. And they had frameworks that we both knew would work.

My role as coach was very much reminding them of that place of knowledge and wisdom I knew they’d already made their own. They didn’t need a whole reset. Very few people do.

When a stick floating down a river gets caught in the eddies at the side it doesn’t need a full scale rescue mission. A gentle nudge will move it out from the reeds and right back in the flow of the current. That's often all we need.

So this weekend sit back and reflect on your current challenges. Notice how very similar they might be to earlier problems you’ve stood up to and defeated. 

And notice how well equipped you already are to wisely use that knowledge already in your possession.