Is It Already Too Late?

 

When you were born, you could have been anybody. So quick and malleable, your parents could look at your face and see a future president. They tried to mold you as you grew, but they could only work with what they had. And when their tools stopped working, they slowly handed off to you, asking, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" There's a certain art to becoming who you are. 

A teenage personality is a delicate medium, its emotions are almost too heavy to handle. You have to keep yourself together, and tease out the good parts without stretching yourself too thin. You can never stop moving for too long, or focus on just one side of your personality, or you'll fall out of balance, and never stand on your own two feet. 

You can't ignore your flaws-you see them so clearly-but you can't just fix them either, and force yourself to change. And you need to make it look effortless, even if you keep getting burned. But the toughest thing to master is the sense that your personality is hardening over time. That the fire that kept you flexible all these years is dimming, and you're becoming set in your ways. 

You can still recall the heat of youth, that once kept you warm on a dingy couch, or a night in the wilderness, or a wandering summer. At any given time you remained untouchable, because you were 'not yourself today.' You knew that you weren't just you, you were also the person you will one day become, finding comfort in the lines, "I am not I. I am the one walking beside me...who stays calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die." 

But now it's hard to deny that you are anyone but yourself; you are who you are, for better or for worse. For all your wondering what kind of person you were going to become, somewhere you forgot that question actually has an answer, and that 'one day' will soon arrive, if it hasn't already. Now you wonder if you can change, even if you wanted to. 

If you have enough fire in the belly to surprise yourself. Or if you're too tough and cynical to stretch without shattering. Of course, maybe who you are is just fine, and dreaming of being someone else would only keep you from being your best self. Or maybe that doesn't really matter.

Maybe it's already too late...

 

The Bass Player

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How Can You Change Your Life?

Questions to Help You 

For Best Results Write Out Your Answers!
 

1. If you had all the money in the world, how would you choose to spend your life?

2. What makes, and when do, you lose yourself…and later realize that you lost all track of time?

3. What lifts your spirits on a dark day?

4. When you are old, and you look back on your life, what things will matter to you the most?

5. What are 3 things that you really hope to achieve in life?

6. What kind of person do you want to be?

7. Who would you say is a role model for a life well-lived?

 

 

TJ

Why Is Everyone More Successful Than Me???

There's an optical illusion that's easy to fall for, even if you know the trick. The more distant you are from other people, the more invulnerable they appear.

You see yourself as you are, with your flaws just as clear as your successes, but you see most other people on their terms, only from the side they present to the world. And at first glance they've got everything figured out, with everything set in stone, securely rooted in their community, wrapped up with their loved ones, their lives like a finished work of art.

But it's only just a trick of perspective: everyone else seems to be doing better than you, because you can't see the cracks from so far away. How insecure their footing, how pliable they really are. How many years of effort went into shaping their identity into something acceptable, how many other hands it took to build their lives, which are still only a work in progress.

It's the kind of basic human vulnerability that we'd all find familiar, but is still somehow surprising when we notice it in others. It's an open question why we have such public confidence, and such private doubts.

Maybe that contradiction is what keeps us moving, wanting to be more than what we are, and never be satisfied. Maybe it lets us keep our distance, to avoid too much friction as we brush past each other. 

Or maybe it's what draws us together, the only irreplaceable thing we still need each other for, just one last excuse to keep stopping by, so we can prop each other up, and remind us that nothing is set in stone, not even who we are, or who we pretend to be.

TJ

What's Your Story???

Your life is a story. The days flip past, too quickly to absorb, a mess of seemingly random events. So you look back and highlight certain moments as important, as turning points in the main plot. You trace each thread back to its origin, finding omens and ironies scattered along the way, until it all feels inevitable, and your life makes sense. You know how this story is going to end, but you’re still eager to skip ahead, dying to know what happens next.

But there are times when you look up and realize that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore. You thought you were following the arc of the story, but you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand. Either everything seems important or nothing does. It’s a tangled mess of moments that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre, that keeping changing depending on what you choose to highlight.

What kind of story is this? Just another coming-of-age tale, the same one your parents told, with the names switched around? Is your everyday life part of the origin story of something truly epic? Are you unwittingly getting by on other people’s charity, mistaking your own luck for your own success? Are you a character in a romance, a tragedy, a travelogue, or just another cautionary tale?

As you thumb through the years, you may never know where this all is going. The only thing you know is that there’s more to the story. That soon enough you’ll flip back to this day looking for clues of what was to come, rereading all the chapters you skimmed through to get to the good parts—only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

TJ

Leaving the Past In The Past...

I think sometimes we let nostalgia trick us into forgetting that the people in our past are there for a reason.

We must remind ourselves it is either because we purposely left them there or they ended up there for reasons beyond our control.

It’s okay to think about the past and reminisce the good times occasionally – but don’t obsess over it to the point where you’re sacrificing opportunities in the here and now because you’re too attached to the echoes of things long gone… 

The present is the greatest gift you’ll ever have and the future holds wonders beyond your imagining… Don’t throw it all away by constantly looking for the things you lost along the way…

TJ

Understanding People

If I understand you, then I can be more accurate in my interactions with you.

Understanding another person is perhaps the second most difficult thing to do (the most difficult thing is understanding yourself).

People are driven by complex and deep motivations, that if you can understand you can support and shape.

They have limited capabilities and are shaped by past events in their lives - many of the early ones of which may have been, at the time, traumatic.

They infer meaning that is different from what is really happening and formulate intent using faulty logic and decision processes.

They have differing preferences that lead them to behave as different 'personality types'.

...and all you need to do is understand all this.

What's can you do???

I'm glad you asked!

Always spend as much time as possible trying to understand people so that you can explain their past actions and predict their likely future actions.

Demonstrating your understanding, when coupled with care and concern, is a powerful way of building trust.

When talking with them, use the same language and models as they do, so they can understand what you say in their own terms.

You can also use your understanding to build tension and, therefore, persuade them.

TJ

What Do You Believe About People?

We have beliefs about many things. 

These may be 'black and white' polarities. 

They may also range along a spectrum between the two ends. 

What I (you) believe about people will drive how I (you) behave towards them.

Intent: concerned for others vs. concerned for self

This is the belief about how basically selfish people are. A balance between these two concerns leads to the Care-Behavior Matrix.

The Collaborator
If we believe in the rights of people to be cared for, that we have a duty of care towards them, and also believe that others are trustworthy and caring, then we will seek to collaborate and work together with them.
The Collaborator is the opposite of the Independent. They make good team players and can become very frustrated when working with Users and Independents.

The Nurturer
If we believe in the rights of people to be cared for and that we have a duty of care towards them, but that they do not care about others, then we will try to be helpful and guide them in their actions (perhaps even if they do not want help).
The Nurturer is the opposite of the User. When Users and Nurturers work together, the Nurturer can become a victim.

The User
If we believe that people have no rights to be cared for, but that others are trustworthy and caring, then we may seek to take advantage of this. We may stereotype or depersonalize them as we seek to absolve ourselves of any guilt about this.
The User is the opposite of the Nurturer and when they work together, the User may become a bully or callously take advantage of the Nurturer's good faith.

The Independent
If we do not believe in the rights of people to be cared for, and that others do not care about us, then we will go our own way and generally ignore others.
The Independent is the opposite of the Collaborator and will usually prefer to work alone rather than in teams.

Concern for others

I can believe that people are basically good and kind and have a natural tendency to help others. People who believe this way are likely to be trusting and trustworthy. They may also be naive and open to unprincipled persuasion.

Concern for self

I can believe that we are all basically selfish, and all actions are self-motivated. People who see the world in this Machiavellian way will not trust others and will manipulate the world for their own ends. They may even interpret pro-social, helpful actions as for the purpose of making me feel good.

Capability: natural talent vs. ability to learn

Natural talent

This is also called Trait Theory. It assumes that people are born with particular talents and abilities and that there is no point trying to change these.

This was popular in the early years of psychological theories and then was scotched when the complexity of people, the (particularly Freudian) effects of early development and their ability to learn was considered. More lately, it has return in the guise of Behavioral Genetics.

If people in organizations believe more in natural talent, this increases significantly the importance of recruitment and decrease the importance of training and development.

If I believe that I have some talents and not others, then I am less likely to seek to learn and more likely to try to live based on what I can already do and what I believe I know.

Ability to learn

I can believe that, by and large, we all have similar talent, and that the question of ability is more about learning. All people are seen as 'learning machines' and the focus is more often rather on whether we can learn but our preferred learning style.

If people in organizations believe more in our capability to learn, this increases significantly the importance of training and development and decrease the importance of recruitment.

If I believe that I can develop through learning, I will be more likely to seek higher education and take an approach of 'life-long learning'.

Intelligence: Fixed ability vs. Growth mindset

Similar to nature-nurture capability beliefs, this is often a personal belief: Am I as clever as I am or can I become more intelligent. as with other beliefs, each creates a self-fulfilling prophesy whereby a person grows intellectually or not. (Research, by the way, has shown that around half of your 'intelligence' is inherited and half is about what you do).

Fixed ability

The fixed ability belief is that we have a certain intelligence and ability and are unable to change this.

It has been found that children who are praised as being 'clever' tend to take on less risky challenges as they do not want to lose this 'intelligent' tag. 

Growth mindset

In contrast to the fixed viewpoint, a person with the 'growth' mindset believes that if they work hard they will become more and more clever.

Children who are praised as 'working hard' take on more challenging tasks, in contrast with those who were praised for being clever.

TJ