“A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.”
Proverbs 29:11 ESV
How often do you “blow your lid”? How frequently do you say something like, “You don’t understand, I just have to vent”? According to this proverb, if that is your pattern, you may be a fool. Or, at least, foolish in that moment. On the other hand, if you maintain your composure and are measured in difficult circumstances, that is an indication of the presence of wisdom.
This does not remove any emotion from life. If the building is on fire, please yell, “FIRE!!” But, let’s not make a big thing out of a small thing in order to give some measure of justification to our foolishness. For example, if the restaurant is currently out of vanilla ice cream, there’s no need to ask for the manager or let everyone within earshot know how upset you are that there is no vanilla ice cream. If you do, you are a fool. Wisdom says, “Let it go.”
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