Wisdom?

I'm not sure if you can count the following items as wisdom, but they come from my observations of life. Read, relish and reflect on them if you wish.

Knowing how to operate the controls doesn't mean you know how to run the machine.
You might know how to start the car, shift the gears and press the brake pedal, but if you try to shift into first or drive before you put the key in the ignition, you're not likely going anywhere.
A larger application of this is that you can have good basic life skills such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc., but you could still make bad decisions about which job to take, using drugs, or continuing a bad relationship.

It isn't what you have that counts, it's what you do with it.
I have 2 stories that go with this one.
First, when I was young, my family liked to play a game called Moon. It is similar to Spades, but you play it with dominoes. When 4 people play, they usually play as 2 teams of partners. One time, my oldest brother and I were playing a 3-way game with my best friend, and he started to gloat over his success. Well, my brother and I "teamed up" to keep him from winning any more.
Later, when I was working at an auto parts warehouse, some of my co-workers liked to play regular dominoes in the breakroom during lunch. One time this one guy looked at what his hand and made a sound to express his disgust at not drawing anything he thought was useful. That's when I remebered the earlier incident and said, "It ain't whatcha got that counts, it's what you do with it!" I decided to polish up the language a bit for here.

Numbers don't lie, but they don't tell the whole story either.
I could have said that "Numbers don't lie, but people do," but that applies mostly to statisitics.
What I'm really talking about is how math is sometimes limited in its applications. For example, if a toddler sees 2 balls in her yard, one green and one blue, and if she picks up one and throws it, the laws of physics expressed as equations will tell how far the ball will go if we know how much force she applied to it. What math can not tell us is if she will pick up the green one or the blue one, which direction she will throw it, or if she will even pick one up to beign with.
If you need further proof of this, Google or search YouTube for "Abbot Costello math" and watch some of the videos.

The best way to keep up is to stay ahead.
I'm not necessarily talking about competition. This applies to business and technology. These fields change so much and they affect each other so much, you need to be aware of and ready to adapt to the changes. AutoCAD is 25 years old now, and the latest release (AutoCAD 2008) barely resembles the original. The 3D capabilities introduced in ACAD 2007 resemble the work environment of the higher-end 3D products. Those higher-end products are changing the way some companies work because they can create models of large complex assemblies, make changes to the assemblies or parts as needed, visualize everything, use the model data to produce the parts or prototypes, and also use the model data to generate bills of materials or other information for accounting or sales purposes.

Read the sky, taste the wind, find the storm...dodge the lightning!
This is my signature on Stormtrack.org/forum, a discussion board for stormchasers, and it's similar to the Numbers saying. Many stormchasers will do their own forecasting so they don't spend a lot of time, money, and effort on a busted chase. The numbers in the forecast model can give an indication of what could happen and where it could happen, but to actually find the storm, you have to get out there and use all your senses, maybe even use some intuition. Even when this approach works, don't forget safety and common sense.

Most rules can be summed up in two words: Play Nice!
I think this one is self-expanatory. If there's anything to add, it would be that this statement is not an endorsement of pollitical correctness, something I regard as oxymoronic and a poor substitute for the Golden Rule.