Perspicacious

Does that word describe you?

Are you shrewd, able to gain an insight into things others may not, are you perceptive and astute?

Only you can answer the question; a self-evaluation, an honest one, of your character and personality, thoughts and actions will reveal the truth of it. But now I think of it, it seems unfashionable for a person to delve too deeply into exactly who they are and so many may never truly know; there's just as many who will think they are though, or at least present that they are, and with the rise of the internet where everything is at a person's fingertips, a vast wealth volume of knowledge what is purported to be knowledge, it's probably quite easy for people to delude themselves and others of the degree of perspicacity they may in fact command.

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I was chatting with the individual who sits above my position in the hierarchy of the organisation I work for; he was telling me how pleased he is with the way I've been approaching a few (extremely difficult) aspects of my job, the way I've shown an element of shrewdness which has paid great dividends for the organisation; coming from him that means a lot and personally, it's a nice reward for the effort I've been injecting, other than the financial of course.

We were talking about the complexities of doing business and how one needs to be perspicacious and thoughts spilled over into the complexities around working towards our own personal life goals.

Living in today's society can be complex for so many reasons and plotting a path forward towards our goals whether they're financial, health, relationship or otherwise is difficult; avoiding pitfalls, or being prepared to deal with them when we fall into them, is a constant battle that requires perspicacity, a fuck-load of perspicacity, and getting it wrong...well, it often goes badly. There's so many case of people getting it wrong, making rash, unintelligent or uninitiated decisions that have long-term repercussions and sometimes there's just no coming back from it.

The problem is that there are so many options, we're bombarded with choice, with the next big thing, with hype, misinformation, disinformation and, of course, there's always someone out there working to take what isn't theirs through nefarious means...I think being perspicacious isn't a luxury item, it's a necessity and those who are not...well, they'd better get with the program quickly I guess, or suffer the consequences.

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Dig below the surface a little and I bet most people could find a sorrowful story of someone (or themselves) who was caught out by a world that moves so quickly: A scam, a lost opportunity through fear of acting due to incomprehension and a lack of a shrewd, calculating mind; there's the opposite too, I'm sure. So that's what I wanted to put out there today to see if any of you folks have had such experiences yourselves.

If you'd like to, tell me about your perspicacity, specific cases of how it has worked for you in some aspect of your work or personal life, or maybe explain how you became more perspicacious, what you actively did to foster the skill, or maybe about how your lack of astuteness and understanding cost you dearly.