What Is Being Smart?

Being educated. What does that mean? According to dictionary.com, is having undergone education, especially one above average and characterized by or displaying qualities of culture and learning. From that, I would interpret being educated to mean that you have a college education and you are aware of the world's situation. It is hard to really define though. No where in the definition does it mention knowing something versus understanding. Nor does the definition mention being smart.

Being smart as defined by dictionary.com is having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability, being shrewd or sharp, as a person in dealing with others or as in business dealings and being dashingly or impressively neat or trim in appearance, as persons, dress, etc. With this, I would conclude that you can be smart but not educated and educated but not smart right?

I do not consider myself a super smart person academically. I did do very well in high school but I never got straight A's. I was never in AP this and AP that or any honors crap. I do consider myself a smart person though when it comes to street smarts and common sense. I cannot do quick math in my head and I can't tell you history. I can tell you about experiences and weird stuff in life and everything I have written in my blog so far.

I consider street smarts more valuable than any book smarts. Sure, books smarts and all that stuff can get you a high paying job but I doubt I would even like the job I would get with knowing all this math, history or politics. The people I have talked to who have real common sense and streets smarts were way more interesting than talking to some know-it-all kid. I feel like, for some people, it's all surface knowledge. There is no depth. Knowing things like what to do in an emergency or how to find your way home when lost using little to no technology is much more handy than knowing a bunch of science or complicated stuff that no one ever uses unless they are specifically in a field of work that requires such knowledge.

Being "smart" can get you anywhere really. For example, a lot of singers/entertainers are very smart and their team is smart in what they do to make us follow them. They have the smarts of the business and just basic knowledge of how to use the system to suit them the best. They may have dropped out of college and high school but they what good are book smarts for them? What good is talent if you can successfully become famous using marketing tactics, etc.

Being dumb or stupid, to me, is not someone who can't answer some crazy math equation or someone who can't name all sorts of court cases related to a certain issue in society. Being dumb is not realizing obvious things around you. It's not being able to answer things that should be considered common knowledge. Things like geography and basic finance and politics should be common knowledge, but unfortunately most people don't know all that. I even admit to not knowing all the basics of finance and some politics. Maybe you are not dumb if you don't know where Uzbekistan is, but you could be dumb if you don't know where England or China is. Being stupid or dumb also shows in everyday behavior. For instance, when people try to pay credit when there is a sign clearly in front of them saying that the place takes cash only. Just a complete disregard for their surroundings and the people they may be disrupting is a stupid thing in my opinion.

The people who understand, not just know, things in life, are the ones that I truly respect. I'd rather listen to someone talk about their experiences and what they have learned and little things about the world rather than someone's knowledge of cars or sports. Experiences and observations can be used in every situation. They can be used to help to further understand things around you. I feel like to many people are analytical and miss the simple things and the basics of life. Most people, including myself, know A LOT, but don't necessarily understand a lot. If we can increase that knowledge into understanding, I think we would be a lot better on in this world.