“As dead flies cause even a bottle of perfume to stink, so a little foolishness spoils great wisdom and honor.” – Ecclesiastes 10:1, New Living Translation
I was reading my Bible and this verse hit me like a ton of bricks. Great wisdom is ruined by a little foolishness… This is bad for me. My wisdom is not all that great, and my foolishness exceeds the limits of the word “little.” How many times in life have I let just a little foolishness ruin something that was going well?
In my arrogance I have made the error of thinking my efforts and status are far more resilient than they are. Like so many people I have worked hard at things in my life. I have done the right things and acted wise and honorable in these pursuits. Following this virtuous path, I have had many nice things in my life. So many times I have then allowed foolishness to enter the equation.
My foolishness takes many forms. My foolishness can be obvious. This is a kind of foolishness that is easy to avoid, but one that I will still indulge in. It can also be sneaky and creep in like some sort of metaphysical ninja. The most insidious forms are when I trick myself into foolishness.
Foolishness can be very insidious when we don’t even consciously choose to be stupid. We can misjudge a margin of error. When we do this think we are doing ok and just choose not to stay strong. Then we realize the margin of error was smaller and we shot ourselves in the foot. We did nothing consciously wrong, but doing this kind of thing over and over again is foolish. I remember engaging in this sort of miscalculation many times with school projects. I would simply not do the extra credit options because I was already getting a good grade. Later I would find out I had just missed the grade I wanted to get. I misjudged the margin of error I had. Often this extra credit would not have been much more work, not doing it was just foolish. I repeated this mistake many times over my school years. This fits the description of tricking myself.
I can also be good at tricking myself into being lazy. I think letting my guard down is a form of being lazy. Letting our guard down is definitely a form of foolishness. It can be so easy to do. We can get in a hurry or complacent and all of a sudden we have a problem. There are so many ways foolishness can be insidious.
Foolishness is always there waiting to cause trouble. My life has proven many times over that just a little can derail things fast. I feel this means I must do several things to succeed.
I must remember that one drop of poison will poison the well.
I must remember that foolishness is not some sort of blatant evil. It’s still very destructive.
I must remember to stay constantly vigilant because otherwise I am being foolish.