On Being Wise vs. Being Gratified

“Wisdom is not the purchase of a day”
-Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

A person stands a much better chance of  winning the lottery than of finding a quick and easy path that bestows wisdom upon the traveler.

Instant gratification, and the culture that promotes it, forsakes the harder, longer path toward the unpromised gift of wisdom for the easier, quicker path of indulgence – of body, mind, and spirit; too much of everything.

Gratification is not gratitude, and information is not wisdom.