What Do You Want to Improve in Yourself?
Change is inevitable, but the kinds of change, and the ways in which we change, are well within our own control, so it becomes important to consider how we want to change.
It is said that Latin is a “dead” language because it stopped changing or growing. I suppose that’s about as good a definition of dead as we’re going to find. Stop changing or growing and you’re very likely dead, at least on some level…
The Only Constant
The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, first explained to us that “the only constant in life is change” which, at first glance, seems like a paradox. When you expand upon and further explore the meaning of this aphorism, you come to appreciate that everything changes. Nothing lasts forever. This same philosophy has been shared with us by many legendary people of wisdom. Siddhartha Gautama, the original Buddha, spoke of embracing impermanence. Jesus Christ spoke of the finite nature of this life and the opportunities awaiting in the next.
Change is inevitable, but the kinds of change, and the ways in which we change, are well within our own control, so it becomes important to consider how we want to change. How we wish to improve various facets and elements of our lives is something well within our capacity to control and, by doing so, enjoy.
Improving Your Life
Barring psychological disorders, everyone wants to improve their life, make it more enjoyable, less challenging perhaps. But improving your life exists as a collection of many other kinds of improvements, each deserving of our consideration.
Improving Your Health
Often overlooked or ignored, improving ones health promises many benefits that each contribute separately to life improvement.
People in great physical condition generally enjoy life more because so many things that compromise our health manifest themselves in mood and outlook. Maintaining ideal weight puts less stress on everything, which enables us to deal with external stress better than we ever could otherwise.
Also, staying in shape improves our self-image, and our overall perception of ourselves. We feel better about ourselves when we feel we look good.
Improving our health also provides improved defense against illnesses that could harm, disable, or even kill us prematurely.
Improving What You Eat
Staying in great physical condition has two basic requirements. Eating better and using our bodies better. Both begin with asking ourselves what we feel would constitute better eating and better physical activity. The great news is that we have such abundance to choose from.
For some, the health benefits of food are of paramount concern. “You are what you eat,” is their popular mantra. “Food is fuel,” might be another.
Others see eating as a pleasure we bestow upon ourselves, always seeking new tastes, new flavors, new textures, new types of food prepared in new and varied ways to be savored and enjoyed well beyond their ability to fuel our body systems.
The trick is to balance the gustatory delight of food with the nutritional value the body needs. This is altogether achievable.
Improving What You Do for Your Body
It is altogether too easy to find excuses for not moving your body, yet moving your body is exactly what will benefit your health the most. Even simple moderate walking delivers excellent health benefits. Once again, this column’s core belief that it is all in what you want applies powerfully. If you find yourself making excuses and not getting moving, you simply need to ask yourself what you want! Do you want to live longer to enjoy your family more, and to accomplish more in your life, and to explore more of your world and enjoy the exploration much more fully? Or do you want to lay on the couch munching snacks?
Seems like a ridiculous question when you stop to ask it. No?
Improving Your Skills
Now we wander into a land of difficult choices. Those who are only interested, enthused, even obsessed by one thing are most fortunate. They can focus on that one thing and on improving the way in which they do that one thing. They can pour all of their energy into it and enjoy the satisfaction that mastery brings.
Others want a variety of things to occupy them. They want to read and study, or play musical instruments, or create works of art, or play and compete at sports, or go out and help those in need. There’s so much abundance. But what we sacrifice for trying to take advantage of more of that abundance is the inability to fully engage in all of them. Or even one of them.
Here begin the choices. Which of our interests do we invest our time into? How much time? Are we ready to acknowledge that we’re missing out on others? Can we survive on less sleep? Can we accelerate some of our processes.
Can we improve?
Improve Your Career
Under no circumstances does one size fit all here. What we choose to do in order to sustain ourselves and our family, and to fulfill our desire to contribute something meaningful, and to help us feel productive and necessary, varies with each and every person. Some feel most secure when gainfully employed by others, while others refuse to work for anyone other than themselves. Some are satisfied to be counting and computing the financial achievements of those who produce products, services, and other results. Others cannot live with themselves if they’re not creating something meaningful.
This very column grew out of the many times I tried to help others who had recently lost their employment. When I asked them what they wanted to do, their all-too-frequent response was, “I don’t know!”
I cannot fathom how anyone could not know what they want to do, or to be. So I began to write this column as a way to explore that core question and help people become capable of answering it gainfully.
To improve your career, you must increase your knowledge and your skills, expand upon your experiences, learn new things. You must actively choose your directions and plan your process for moving decidedly in those directions. You must invest your passion into that which will best fulfill you.
Improvement is a constant process we must embrace always and forever.
Improve Your Outlook
People are incredibly adept at obstructing their own progress. We adopt attitudes toward events happening around us that, in many cases, simply don’t serve us. We take offense at certain actions of certain other people. When we examine the situation more deeply, and only when we examine more deeply, we realize that there is simply no real impact upon us coming from those actions, or the attitudes of those who took them. It simply doesn’t matter. We are wasting our time, our energy, and our mindspace on things that don’t affect us. It’s normal. We just need to stop, and forgive ourselves our indulgences.
It’s very easy to become dissatisfied with what is going on around us, and to have that dissatisfaction devolve into frustration and despair. Once again, we need to examine our situation in the context of others. We must remind ourselves of Victor Frankl’s assertion that we always have the right to choose our response, our attitude to any given set of circumstances. Frankl survived the indignities and the sheer torture of the Nazi concentration camps by maintaining that positive outlook despite all hardships.
Dr. Wayne Dyer often reminded us that we have everything we need right inside ourselves. It can be helpful to remind ourselves of that occasionally, and take a quiet inventory of all that lies within us.
Improving Your World
Recent events and developments have created new imperatives, new priorities which must be carefully considered. We may be confounded when trying to figure out what each of us can do to mitigate our new circumstances, but we cannot allow that to dissuade us from taking whatever action we can.
I’m speaking, of course, of the damage we humans are doing to our planet. When you put it all in perspective, everything else pales in comparison. How much can our political circumstances matter if there’s nowhere for people to safely live? If our lands are all flooded by rising seawater? If our ecosystems are damaged beyond recognition, killing off many species forever. Perhaps including us?
Existential
We are well served to remember the true meaning and import of the word “existential.” Just as it sounds, it means that our very existence depends upon it. Here in the United States, we produce only about 15% of the toxins that are damaging our environment. It is estimated that India and China may each contribute as much as 40% each. Our task must be to find ways to convince them to stop belching hydrocarbons into our atmosphere. Reduce the harm they’re doing dramatically. Find sustainable, renewable sources of energy. John Kerry is absolutely correct. We are fighting World War Zero, and we are losing.
This must change our perspective on everything else we wish to improve. As have all generations that preceded us, we own responsibility for leaving a healthy, viable planet to serve as home for our grandchildren and their children. The “past-the-point-of-no-return” date seems to be hurtling closer and closer to now, far sooner than anyone predicted.
To improve yourself, improve our world. As Gandhi is reported to have said, we must all be the change we wish to see in the world. His complete insight as he actually said it:
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”