Posts tagged with "self-improvement"

Virus

In the past, I’ve always appre­ci­at­ed any dis­mal emo­tions I was expe­ri­enc­ing. Even though these melan­choly feel­ings have always been com­fort­able and even inspir­ing to me, I’ve usu­al­ly felt like I’d rather be in a com­pla­cent mood.

I real­ized that some­times it’s best for emo­tions to be felt and expe­ri­enced, no mat­ter how bad they are. Sometimes it’s just bet­ter to let feel­ings run their course, to con­sume the fuel that makes one feel defeat­ed. Of course, this is only pos­si­ble when there is no more fuel being gen­er­at­ed. When there is stag­nan­cy in the sit­u­a­tion and one is aloud to rest in one’s mind, things become much sim­pler. These morose thoughts and ideas need to be embraced and not for­got­ten, so that one can under­stand and learn, grow and be strong.

Eventually, one gets past what has hap­pened, and is a bet­ter per­son for it.

Gauge

Self-improve­ment has been a goal I set for myself for as long as I remem­ber, a sort of nev­er-end­ing quest that I hope to find ful­fill­ment in. It makes me hap­py to know that I have peo­ple to look up to, peo­ple my age whom I know. Being able to real­ize that even these peo­ple are human has helped me set more real­is­tic goals for myself, instead of some quixot­ic ideals I could nev­er hope to accom­plish. Not every­one is the same, of course, and while I may look up to one per­son for their morals, I may look up to some­one else for their con­fi­dence.

However, I judge how well I’m doing in my goals by com­par­ing myself to peo­ple with per­son­al­i­ties I can’t stand. I try to be as san­guine as pos­si­ble, sim­ply because I know some­one who brings down every­one he hangs around with. I try to be open to oth­er peo­ples opin­ions due to the fact that I know some­one who refus­es to accept any­thing but his own con­clu­sions, as open-mind­ed as those are. I try to have fun even when I’m los­ing a game, as dif­fi­cult as that may be for me some­times, because I know some­one who becomes angry when­ev­er they lose. I try to act affec­tion­ate­ly but appro­pri­ate­ly with peo­ple I’m involved with, sim­ply because I know peo­ple who are either too des­per­ate or too cold. I try to give as much space as is need­ed in my rela­tion­ships because I know peo­ple who are exceed­ing­ly high-main­te­nance.

Whenever I see peo­ple act the way they do, I try to find the good in them. Sometimes I find both good and bad, but I focus on the good, a thing which comes eas­i­ly to me, per­haps as a result of my zeal to become a bet­ter per­son.

Sometimes I find only bad, and it gives me more to work for.

Shift

I had the chance to watch Forrest Gump today, and re-expe­ri­ence was an amaz­ing film it was again. I spent many hours as a kid (or, more appro­pri­ate­ly, as a social her­mit) watch­ing it over and over again.

My grade nine his­to­ry class allowed me the priv­i­lege of under­stand­ing the sub­tleties of cer­tain scenes used as a time stamp, such as Governor Wallace protest­ing the deseg­re­ga­tion of the pub­lic school sys­tem, or each war Lieutenant Dan’s ances­tors died in.

It was odd to watch a film I haven’t seen in so long, yet to be able to quote most parts of it word for word, tone for tone, accent for accent. Everything seemed so for­eign yet so famil­iar. Every scene brought an old emo­tion, unfelt since the last time I watched it so long ago.

It was inter­est­ing to under­stand new things about the movie, things which were beyond my com­pre­hen­sion in my youth. It became appar­ent that I learned much since then, and that I was expe­ri­enc­ing the movie in a dif­fer­ent way. As James Cole notes in 12 Monkeys while watch­ing Vertigo, one may watch a film twice, but it may seem dif­fer­ent when the changes are sole­ly in one­self.

I only now under­stand Lt. Dan’s strug­gles with his fate and phi­los­o­phy. I remem­ber being very phys­i­cal­ly attract­ed to Robin Wright, and I guess I sim­ply lost that attrac­tion. I had­n’t ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed the strength of Forest’s moth­er until see­ing it again today. The list goes on.

It must be rare to have some­thing which can be used as a meter or ruler in which one can mea­sure ones progress. I hold self-improve­ment and intel­li­gence as such impor­tant things in my life that I am con­stant­ly try­ing to use one to bet­ter the oth­er, and con­se­quent­ly I may lose sight of how far I’ve gone.

Hopefully there is more to go.

To Be Immortal

Sometimes it feels like there’s too much to think about, too much to won­der about, too much to under­stand. It seems like I’ll nev­er be able to catch up with all my thoughts. There are too many things that take me too long to know. Yet I’m still learn­ing, or try­ing, at least, every day.

I wish I had all the time in the world to fig­ure things out, to become wis­er or more intel­li­gent.

It would be worth it.