“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
Success is being the right person using the right tools in the right ways for the right cases at the right times for the right reasons.
These are seven fundamental truths that have transformed my life.
- Know Thyself
- Do Everything from a Position of Strength, Wisdom, and Integrity
- We Are All One
- Model the Masters. Success is a Science. Fulfillment is an Art.
- An Asset Not Being Used is Being Wasted
- Take Smart Risks. Be a Master. Be a Renaissance Man.
- We Must Transcend Ourselves through the Greatest Good
Know Thyself
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
Reality is nothing but our perception and representation of it. We cannot choose the cards we are dealt in life, but we can always decide how to play it. It is in these moments of decision that we shape our destiny.
We must understand the interaction and influence amongst our thoughts, our attitudes, and our behaviors. We can change the way we look at the world in one moment. At that instant of realization, we create entirely new universes.
Life is but the interaction of nature and nurture, which continues to form new nature and new nurture. When we are born, we are the nature and nurture that we inherited. When we die, we are the nature and the nurture we created.
Do Everything from a Position of Strength, Wisdom, and Integrity
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
- Serenity Prayer
Consciousness makes us human. Compassion makes us humane. Creation makes us gods.
We all have the power to shape our destiny. We are all responsible for who we are, how we live, and what we leave behind.
We find, create, and grow through three ways - thinking, learning, and experiencing. Through thinking, we create a world of our own. Yet, this world is limited by what we know. Through learning, we stand on shoulder of giants. Yet, that wisdom is not our own. Through experiencing, we forge strength, wisdom, and integrity. Yet, there is only so much time in this world.
We must cultivate ourselves through all three ways to become all we can be.
We Are All One
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
- Albert Einstein
All beings are but a drop in the ocean. Yet, even the boundless ocean wouldn’t be complete without that one drop. We are all interdependent beings with unique characters, stories, and destinies; yet, we are all traveling together towards something greater than ourselves.
When we are weak and small, we build fortresses to protect ourselves from everything else. Yet, in those times, the fortresses become prisons that chain us to the confines of our own mind.
When we are strong and wise, we build bridges to connect ourselves to everything and everyone else. For, in these moments, we transcend the transient tides of mortal binds to create legends and legacies that touch the very space of time.
We enter the world as incomplete and empty beings. So, we look to the world and take from others to make us whole. In reality, it is when we look to ourselves and give to the world that we truly become all.
Model the Masters. Success is a Science. Fulfillment is an Art.
Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.
- Tony Robbins
We can follow formulas to climb up the imaginary ladder to the top, to run ahead of the race, and even to control the crowd. We are taught to chase after results that will someday give us the experience we want.
The truth is fulfillment lies not in some destination, but in the journey. It is not in what we get, but how we live and who we are. And we can decide the values and experiences we want to have every moment of our lives. We each have our own needs and wants in life, and we must meet them in our own way.
We should never force our own wants and needs to someone else. We must understand other people from their own characters and context, rather than ours. It is only from that true understanding that we can help others. From that understand and connection, we are able to communicate to others by their language, rather than ours.
When we understand our purpose, have a passion, and desire peace for all beings, we will be fulfilled. We must look at the intersection between what we love, what is right, and what helps others. This intersection of moral vision, of economic benefits, and of fun is what makes life worth living.
An Asset Not Being Used is Being Wasted
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
We must strive for lasting wealth, not temporary riches. Wealth is not about how much you spend and how much you have, but how much you use and how much you give.
Money only makes you more of what you already are. It is not money itself that is evil, but the love of money and the greedy possession of it. If anything, the world needs more people with higher consciousnesses to have more money and more power to help everyone else.
What we give grows exponentially as it touches one life that touches two that touches four. What we keep dies. We must not waste our precious resources to chase after meaningless consumerism and wasteful consumption. We must strive to have more worthwhile assets in life so we can give more and share more.
Take Smart Risks. Be a Master. Be a Renaissance Man.
Good is the Enemy of Great.
- Jim Collins
The greatest sin is to be comfortable with where we are. Once we stay in the confines of comfort, we stagnate. Once we stagnate, we die.
Life must always be moving, flowing, and growing. Fulfillment is always a stretch beyond our comfort zones. We are responsible to always become more today than we were yesterday.
At the deepest levels, all paths in life lead to the fundamental truths that transcend all aspects of life. We must seek complete mastery of one art that will become the strength, the symbol, and the steward by which other parts of the world open.
The mastery of one art becomes a tower by which we can glimpse into the truths of the world. Yet, we must be careful not to rely only on that one art, for then it becomes a prison.
We must all become warrior poets, philosopher kings, and psychic healers. We must all become Renaissance Men. We must be great in health, in knowledge, in family, in society, in science, in arts, in spirit, and in finances. It is only with this power of both depth and scope that we become free to do whatever we want.
We must begin our journey through the mastery of health - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and financially, in that order. Once we become whole within ourselves, we must master the arts and science of society - communication, lifestyle, innovation, production, and distribution - and the matters of the world - raw resources, environment, ecosystem, space, and the spirit.
We must first focus on creating the best version of ourselves. With this purposeful, passionate, and peaceful character, we can bring our gifts to the rest of the world. We do not have to become the best in everything in life. We just have to become the best we can be, and then seek to become the best in at least one small part of this great big world, even for just one moment.
We cannot give what we do not have. We cannot go into relationships with other beings and expect anyone or anything else to complete us. We must first become completely whole, completely healthy, and completely great, before we can truly give our all in life.
It is only when we love ourselves that we can love anyone or anything else.
We Must Transcend Ourselves through the Greatest Good
The more one forgets himself-by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love-the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.
- Viktor Frankl
We are all unique characters with our own stories, stages, and sets. Yet, we all share the same universal themes. It is these fundamental truths of life that unite all of us.
We all have the power to think, learn, and live these truths. We will all express these truths in our own versions and ways. We all draw our own maps of life. Yet, the map is never the same as the territory. It is merely a representation and perception of the ultimate truth.
Who are we to judge other people’s sin when we are far from perfect ourselves? Let the Ultimate Truth - whatever that may mean for you - do the judging.
Focus on living your life. The only time your life should cross with others is when you are helping them. If neither partner in a relationship can truly contribute to each other’s growth, then there is no relationship. Quickly end such stagnate death before it slowly destroys your world.
Always leverage your strengths for other weaknesses, and other strengths for your weaknesses. Always have something valuable to trade with other people, so you can give them your gifts and gain the gifts that they have. In this manner, you will constantly grow and be more and more, both within your soul and within this world.
It is important to understand that we all grow through phrases. Human beings develop through four phrases in life - self-interest, competition, service, and transcendence.
Healthy children naturally look after their self-interest to survive, to grow, and to experience. They focus on fulfilling their basic physiological, safety, and social needs. After all, one cannot give what one does not have.
Healthy teens have their basic self-interests met to a certain degree, and they seek to create a stronger sense of self through competition. They gain their social and esteem needs through competition. They develop a basic sense of self through experiences, thoughts, and relationships.
Healthy mature adults can sustain themselves through strong self-esteem and a sense of self. They are able to love and serve another, for they are whole unto themselves. They are strong enough to give without needing to take.
Healthy wise elders have contributed to the community and world around them. They are able to forget themselves and transcend themselves for a greater good. It is in this transcendence that they actualize themselves, fulfilling the deepest self-interests of purpose, passion, and ultimately, peace.
Success is being the right person using the right tools in the right ways for the right cases at the right times for the right reasons. We must realize that everyone does the best with what they got and what they know. We must give people what they need, rather than what we want. At the same time, we must also learn that just because someone doesn’t love us the way we need doesn’t mean they don’t love us with all that they got.
Who we are and what we do often depends much more on our contexts than just our characters. Our life is the constant interaction and evolution between our nature and nurture, which creates new nature and new nurtures.
We must constantly grow and improve until we have the courage, the wisdom, and the power to forge our own circumstances and our own characters. It is only then that we are truly alive.
It takes heart, experience, and insights to get to the level of thought where we are free from the confines of what we know and what we did not know. We must be patient with those who are still on this constant path towards enlightenment. We can and must all get to this level of living.
At this level of living, all the oppositions between the heart and head, between want and need, and between love and hate dissipate into a synergic whole that is greater than the sum of all its parts. We realize that these seeming dichotomies are really paradoxes leading to a higher truth. When we live with that level of truth, we naturally do what is right in the world. Our id, ego, superego; our unconscious and conscious; our selfishness and selflessness all become one. We are actualized in our fullest selves because we have transcended our parts.
When all beings live with purpose, passion, and peace through health, wealth, and truth, the world will be perfect.
Never settle for the mediocre. Never let anyone tell you what you can or cannot be. Never give up.
Set the standard for your own life, for in the end, you are the only one who will truly live it.
Dare to dream with eyes open, for it is only then that dreams become reality.
