What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done when no one was watching?
I took that journey into myself, that “road less traveled”. And I came out the other side a better person.
That journey into the self
Tag: mental-health
You made a difference
If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say?
I would hope that I could look back on my life and say, “You made a difference.”
Many people spend their lives trying to obtain some sort of wealth and so-called success. But what is wealth? What is success?
E told me that her sister, S, was visiting. S, who had no grandchildren, looked around at E’s photos of her grandchildren and said, “I may have money. But your wealth is in these photos.”
Real wealth and real success are in the difference we make in the lives of others.
Being a Lifelong Learner
Are you a lifelong learner?
Short answer, Yes!
It would be easy to settle back after the years of schooling and simply drift through life relying on the knowledge we gained. Or would it?
Let’s face it, we all learn new things throughout our lives. Otherwise we would never manage. For many retired people that would mean still doing things the way we did them 50 years ago. And for most of us, that doesn’t happen.
But that’s not what this question is about, is it. This is about learning, not just new skills for everyday life like how to use a microwave, or a web-connected dishwasher. This is about new subjects. This is about new careers, even.
Continue reading “Being a Lifelong Learner”In Search of Perfection
What’s something you used to worry about but don’t anymore?
Wanting to be perfect is not a bad thing. It helps us to always strive for improvement. But we still need to remember that we’re not perfect. We are going to get it wrong at times.
I used to worry about this. I wanted everything I did to be perfect, mainly because nothing I did ever seemed to please others. This was coupled with the common fallacy, “Good enough, isn’t (good enough).”
Then I came across two concepts that made me think.
The first was a building drawing for the carpenters. Having gone to great lengths to specify proper dimensions the architect’s drawing pointed to one piece of timber with the dimension, “Fit on site.” The exact dimension was to be adjusted by the carpenter, depending on what had been done previously, because building with bricks and mortar isn’t an exact, or perfect, science.
The second concept was the Pareto principle. 80% of the results come from 20% of the work. It means that we could be spending most of our time achieving very little.
And then it struck me. Just because we like consistency, it isn’t always necessary. Otherwise we would all look and act and speak the same. We would be robots. But what’s attractive about humans is the differences between us. We love those differences. We love not being perfect replicas of each other.
And suddenly, perfection didn’t matter so much any more. As someone pointed out to me, decades ago, a shirt that’s a perfect fit for one person will not fit someone bigger or smaller. Perfection is relative.
And now, I don’t worry about it any more. Yes, my perfectionist tendencies still make me feel bad, sometimes, especially in the face of negative criticism. But I’ve learned to take a step back and challenge my perfectionism. And it doesn’t worry me so much anymore.
Letting Go
What is your favorite quote?
Letting go of the pain is not about forgetting the past; it’s about remembering the future.
Greenacre 9 