Self
One of the most challenging things to learn is self-watching. When you were younger, other people did all of that watching for you. Parents or guardians were in charge of your discipline, teachers were in charge of your education, friends were in charge of your moral values. Then suddenly you are free of all of those daily influences and out interacting with an adult world. All of those self evaluations are now up to you.
Many people within a few years of age 25, either side, are unhappy. The world they knew growing up is gone. The new world in which they live is very different. It can be hard even to know what the expectations are. That’s true for you in not knowing what to expect from life and it’s true for others’ expectations of you as you go through it.
The adult world can be disillusioning and disappointing when you first enter into it. To overcome those feelings, watch yourself closely and see how you react to the things that happen. If you are stuck in traffic and angry, there are two possible lessons: 1) traffic is a normal part of life and you should learn not to be angry, or 2) you should live in a place, or find a job, where there is no driving in traffic involved.
Those answers are opposites and following one of them will lead you in a very different direction with your life from following the other. The path to your personal satisfaction and happiness as an adult lies with you being able to identify which choice is truly correct for you. It’s a different answer for every person. We all have unique gifts to offer. The key to living a fulfilling life is finding the best way to offer yours.
There is no one else to take the responsibility for making your choices. You are the only one who can decide for you what is truly important to you. All you need is to have the courage to follow through on what you discover about yourself.
You are also the only one responsible for your values. Do you place money ahead of loyalty? Do you put safety ahead of growth? Do you believe that poverty is a result of laziness or a lack of opportunity? You are the one who has to look around the world and learn your own lessons and draw your own conclusions. Relying on what your parents or your teachers through won’t work for you, the world changes quickly these days.
Each of the choices that you make, regarding the above questions and many more, will determine the friends you have, the groups you associate with, the causes you do or don’t take up, the websites you visit, even the media you consume. That is why discernment, the ability to tell truth from fiction, is so important. And don’t believe what everyone these days says about truth always being subjective, that is just plain wrong. Opinions are subjective, so-called truths that people choose to live by are subjective, actual Truth is certainly not.
The easiest example to demonstrate this idea is whether or not anything happens after you die. No matter what you believe as you live, no matter what you think about the concept, there are only two choices. Either something does happen or nothing happens. Whichever one it is doesn’t care at all about what you think or believe right now. That Truth is the same for Evangelical Christians as it is for Muslims as it is for Atheists, and no subjective opinion given on this Earth will change it at all.
The point is that knowing the underlying truth of any situation, from life to business, might change the way you see things. It might change your perspective and it might change your choices. As another example, there is a myth going around that the world cooperative system will collapse in 2012. Either that’s true or it isn’t. For someone in Hawaii, that means that either there will be tourism in 2013 or there will be none at all. Which one they believe is true will certainly affect the decisions that they make between now and then. That is true for their daily lives and is true for how they operate their businesses.
We have had two very big examples, but they work well to illustrate the point that there are actual truths in the world, not everything is up to your individual belief system. To find the best life you can live, don’t just be lazy and be swayed by common belief or opinion, put some effort into finding as many truths as you can in your own world. Then follow those principles. They form a very solid foundation for a set of values to live by.
Balancing those values within yourself is the important step. That doesn’t necessarily mean that if you appreciate nature as well as work that you spend five hours a day in the park. It might mean spending years working in a job that will someday put you in a place to live near a national park or a forest preserve, or even at the beach or on an island. Balance has to be balance for an adult world, not a child’s world. It can take some time to understand all of the influences in your adult world.
That is why one of your most important qualities will be your own level of personal motivation. The more you ask of yourself, the more you will do. Bring the best out of yourself and not only will you appreciate it but the planet as a whole will appreciate it as well.
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Self
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