Think about this:
What is common to the way every person on this planet lives their lives?
Hard to answer isn’t it… There are many answers but at the same time there are few.
Hear me out on this answer because it will require some explanation and may result in some disbelief but nonetheless I consider it utmost truth.
I believe that every person lives, in some way or another for the purpose of increasing the quality of their lives.
Think about it. What did you today? If you’re like most people you got up and went to work. Why did you go to work? (other than because you had to) When you got home from work you may have watched some TV… why did you do that? (other than because you needed to relax after a stressful day) Think back to every decision you have made in your life. Didn’t you make it because you thought in some way that it would make some aspect of your life easier, more joyous, more abundant, less painful? There is not a single sane soul who wakes up in the morning thinking “How can I make my life WORSE today?” (unless of course from doing so they are deriving some strange, falsely conditioned form of pleasure from doing so ie making things “better” somehow)
Now that’s not too hard to believe is it? Seems logical right?
So why is it then that despite there being a multimillion dollar industry created upon the teaching of self improvement that so few people consciously take the quest of personal development and do what it takes to REALLY enhance the quality of their lives and in the process do infinitely better what it is they are already trying every day to do anyway?
Isn’t it odd!
I have thought so much about this over the years, desperately trying to figure out why this is so in the hope that one day I may be able to influence the drastic hold this phenomenon has over our culture
Here are what I believe to be some of the main reasons that more people don’t make personal development a part of their every day lives. (Note: no matter who you are you may find snippets of your own behaviour or mindset sprinkled through out these paragraphs: It may be something to watch out for.)
1. They live UNCONCIOUSLY: Not literally unconscious but unconscious in the sense that they don’t consciously take control of the decisions they make and the actions that spring from those each day. People get into habitual modes of thinking and acting. They ‘go with the flow’, allowing external circumstances to control what they do. These circumstances might be the opinions of others, the views of the media or the majority of a society, or just the EVENTS of their lives. In other words they are REACTIVE. They react to what happens rather than deciding and then creating what happens to them. Not only that, they are just caught up. You know the feeling right? They are so engrossed in the day to day goings on of their lives they have no time to sit and assess whether or not the decisions they are making are moving them closer to what they really want or further away. Sadly, they are a slave to their commitments. To their jobs, to their families, to their chores and more. While day in and day out they will feel like they ARE deciding (after all, they decide to go to work, they decide to watch TV, they decide to play golf on the weekends) and on some level they are, ultimately they are missing out on so much ‘juice’.
2. Ego: This one’s a real shame. A large sector of the population believe that the only people who pursue personal development are those that need ‘help’ (a belief derived from the term ‘self help’ which I particularly hate). Of course they don’t need help, they don’t have problems so why should they read books like that. Unlike the other factors this one is more due to the way we have been conditioned to react to personal development type material. The real reason for the Ego factor (and something that as a society we can do a lot towards improving) is a lack of
3. Awareness: Simply put, people just don’t know what’s possible. Or perhaps more accurately they don’t know what’s possible for THEM. With only the top tiny percentage of the population living exemplary lives, most people have no real reference of a person like themselves living a life beyond their wildest dreams. Sure we see movie stars and celebrities living opulently and fantastically but we perceive people like that to be somehow different to us and think that the standards of living they exhibit are beyond our capabilities and outside of our realities. Of course these people are blind to the fact that it’s not outside their reality at all if they only had the knowledge to expand that reality beyond their current beliefs.
I’m sure you can remember a time when you have heard or seen someone (of course not you ;) ) exhibit one of more of these traits or behaviours.
So what’s the point of all this? How can we use this knowledge?
The first thing I think we can do is heighten our own awareness of the times when we may exhibit these behaviours.
Perhaps you sometimes settle for less than what you are capable of because you lack the awareness that you are a field of possibility with the ability to create anything your mind can fathom…?
Perhaps your ego gets in the way at times and you fail to recognize a weakness whose improvement or correction could greatly enhance your experience of life…?
Perhaps you yourself have been so caught up with your day to day tasks that you stopped appreciating everything you have in your life and stopped making conscious decisions for the sake of your continued development…?
Further to using the above thoughts for introspection they are also useful in our quest to give to and assist those that are yet to know the happiness, joy, love and power that they are capable of…
Perhaps you could slowly and gently persuade a friend to take a closer look at the decisions they are making in their lives and the results they are getting from them? Perhaps you could inspect some people’s opinions on personal development and with time help them to understand more clearly its merits? Or perhaps you could subtly help build awareness of how great life can be by consciously being an example of the happiness and fulfillment through your interactions with others.
My goal is to enhance people’s experiences of reality (or at least educate them so that they may enhance their own experiences of reality) and I believe an understanding of the thoughts spoken about here to be a great start to the voyage of making this possible.
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