178 brilliantpositivepsychology spiritual and religious are doing and why it matters to your overall well-being. Wisdom Wisdom is generally considered to hold the best of human qualities and as such is an important subject of research into well-being. The psychology of wisdom-related knowledge under- stands wisdom as a combination of intellect, expertise and character. Positive psychology is showing more and more clearly that character, `who we are', is one of the strongest contributing factors to a happy flourishing life. Character is also what sepa- rates intellect and cleverness from wisdom. Wisdom is not intelligence but intelligence is an essential quality of the wise. Wisdom involves the ability to assess knowledge in context and to be able to take account of other people at the same time as being able to balance long-term and short-term interests within existing and future environments. Basically wisdom involves an instinctive, as well as an experienced, balancing of factors that is able to go beyond a rule-based approach. The psychologist Robert Sternberg believes that wisdom requires: An awareness of your values. An effective management of conflicting interests, including self-management. an ability to gain insight into the subtleties of a particular situation and to use this insight for developing a useful strategy. 152