You Have a Dream! What Now? Part 3: The Art of Self-Creation
You Have a Dream is the first of sixteen chapters of StartUp Space and explores ways to magnify human capabilities.
StartUp Space is an entrepreneur's need-to-know guidebook that instructs entrepreneurs on starting and running a business by visualising its structure and information flows.
Breaking the Mould: A New You Awaits Within
We are the architects shaping our destiny.
If we made mistakes along the way and are thinking: "If I was again such and such age," we can correct delusions of our younger days. We can redesign our lives. In this ambitious redesign, we must appraise each facet of who we aspire to be, not to make boo boo again. Thoughtful recreation of our core leads to excellence.
Aim to be yourself!
Blueprints in Motion: Embracing Elasticity
Life's blueprint is dynamic, etched not in the permanence of stone but in the malleability of shifting perspective. No design is so flawless that it doesn't require sprucing up our purpose and re-examining our identity.
Adaptability is the key.
The plan inevitably changes during implementation. As we move closer to our objective, proximity allows us to observe a more defined shape of the steps as they emerge from the complexity of our being.
We must be flexible while building a robust foundation for our reinvention.
The Perfection Mirage: A Chase Without an End
The quest for perfection is an elusive chase of the forever-distant horizon. It is an impossible task.
No matter how well something is made, it can constantly be improved, including us.
However, we can come close to perfection if we persistently pursue improvement. For all its glory, even Michelangelo's David is a testimony to the beauty of its imperfections.
We must learn from Émile Zola, who landed himself in a predicament. He mused on the burdens of perfection, jesting that its pursuit was more demanding than the vices it sought to replace. His reflections on perfection remind us that striving for excellence is more fruitful than pursuing an unattainable ideal of perfection. He jested: "Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco."
When I read this, I was relieved! I also cured myself of using tobacco! It's hard to be alone!
In contemplating our life's direction, we must assess all pros and cons before deciding which fork to take. Our options are to advance towards a vibrant, self-directed existence or a passive drift through the days directed by others.
Our choice will determine whether to live in eventful freedom or docile bondage.
StartUp Space Is designed to help you navigate through these challenges - keep reading, sharing and collaborating.
Don't Drift Through Your Destiny, Drive It
Remember, tomorrow's self cannot remain unchanged after today's experiences. Inevitably, you of tomorrow will be shaped by your decisions of today. Trying to resist change is futile. It is unavoidable that today's experience will alter you to emerge a new person tomorrow. Change is not just inevitable but necessary for our growth.
Change is inevitable, but direction is a choice.
Our transformation shouldn't be too hard if we follow the advice of another brilliant sculptor, Auguste Rodin, who is considered the originator of modern sculpture. When asked how he made his statues, he said: "I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need."
Inspired by Auguste Rodin's sculptural wisdom, who carved the famous masterpiece of The Thinker, we can approach our personal development by chiselling away an overabundance of misconceptions to reveal our core.
If you remove the tendency of prototyping yourself on others it will reveal the gift bestowed upon you and the essence of your intended self.
From Block of Marble to Masterpiece
Echoing the wisdom of Auguste Rodin, we must approach our transformation with a similar intent: to carve away the excess and reveal the essence. The marble of our being is ready to chisel away the unnecessary and reveal the glory of our nature.
We have to start chopping. We are that block of marble from which, through self-reflection and steady effort, we polish our virtues and whittle down our vices, exposing magnificence of our essence.
I am sure most of us will not have to search painstakingly to find bad habits we need to eliminate, except maybe a few extraordinary likes of Émile Zola.
Just think of your unfulfilled New Year's resolutions and start there. Once you finish with those, look at MIT University's list of 638 primary personality traits divided into positive, neutral, and negative. Lots of chopping and polishing there - and these are just primary traits.
Chop off negative, polish positive, strengthen neutral - and keep chiselling.
As we sculpt our persona, the negative traits diminish, making the positive aspects shine. The more negative ones we chop off, the more visible our positive traits become and the more room for their enhancement we create; others await the sculptor's touch.
As you begin this sculptural quest, start with the simplest of eliminations - those resolutions and habits long acknowledged yet unaddressed. The more positive characteristics we nurture, the less stubborn our bad habits become.
As we sculpt our persona, with each undesirable trait we chop away, our virtues shine brighter, gaining space to flourish, propelled by the unstoppable energy wave of growing positivity.
As we cultivate the good, we diminish the hold of the bad and carry forward the momentum of positive change.
Chisel away doubt and reveal confidence.
Next section of You have a Dream. What Now?, is On the Brink of the Voyage: Unveiling step-by-step journey to becoming a masterpiece.
The previous article in the Renaissance 2.0 series is: Revitalising Your Existence
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