I find it interesting how few "About me" blogs there are out there that admit things like, "I am a self-absorbed person" or "I prefer to run away from my problems" or "I deceive people to get what I want." However, from many of our personal experiences, the world has quite a few of these kinds of people. It is clear that these people might not make as many friends, if they were to post such descriptions of themselves. In light of this, I suppose a more fitting name for this blog entry would be, "What I Want You to Know About Me". But I guess that might be a little too long, huh?
That said, you probably don't want to know anything about me now, since I take that long just to get to the real point. :) I am a person that feels that important things should be explained with great care. I also feel that explaining who I am to another person is an important thing, so I take great care in doing it. I could tell you a great deal that is not true about myself, and, on the short-term, I might gain something. For example, I could make it seem that I am a genius with an incredibly high IQ. By hinting at this, I *might* gain your respect and admiration, but the day always comes when the Truth about what I am becomes apparent. The Truth about what is can be hidden, but not forever. The saying goes that we can only accept the Truth or break ourselves upon it. At some point I would be held responsible for my lie, and my credibility would be forever tarnished. It is interesting that not only do I lose the trust from having lied, but I also lose the time and energy required to sustain the lie. In short, it is not an effective choice to falsely misrepresent oneself to others, if you seek to maintain long-term relationships.
So, in an attempt to correctly communicate what kind of person I am, I will list the qualities that I think are most important in a person, qualities I hope will illuminate the core values of my character. Note, however, that I make no assertion about whether I possess these qualities. I'll leave that judgment up to those who know me. Also note, the majority of what is below are some of the main points of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Dr. Stephen Covey, so if you like what you read, you will definitely like that book!
First, and perhaps most importantly, is 'responsibility'. When I say responsibility, I mean the fact that each of us has the response-ability to choose our response to the things that happen to us. When the owner of a bar in Tokyo closed the doors in my face, I was faced with the opportunity to choose what action I would take. I could choose to be angry and resentful and let that experience affect my opinion of Japanese people as a whole, or I could choose to try to understand why the owner did that and what I could do, if anything, to change her opinion. I cannot blame my anger on that person, because she only closed the doors on me. If I am angry about that, it is because I choose to empower her opinion to anger me. To take the lesson one step further, if I have a miserable life, it is because I have chosen to empower the things in my life to make me miserable. You may say, "But there are lots of bad things that happen which are not my fault! What about earthquakes? What about when a loved one passes away?" True, we have no control over many things in life, but we do have control over our response to them. The power to choose is ours. Until we accept this responsibility, we cannot focus our efforts on effectively improving our lives. (For a more complete discussion of this concept, please refer to the chapter on Habit 1 of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Dr. Stephen Covey.)
The next quality I feel is very important is 'introspection', or the ability to think deeply about the choices one has made and judge whether those choices are in harmony with our values. In the hustle and bustle of daily life, it is often difficult to stop ourselves and think about whether our choices are leading us toward our end goal in life. However, if we never stop to think, we will not know if our choices are leading us in the wrong direction. If we are going in the wrong direction, then working harder will not help because we will only get to the wrong place faster! By introspecting, we can take immediate actions to correct our past mistakes and keep ourselves on the right path that is in harmony with our values.
The next quality is 'mindfulness', and is a big concept in Buddhist philosphy. Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of our actions through deliberate mental effort. Such effort allows us to immediately notice when we stray from the correct path of living in harmony with our values. Someone who is mindful notices immediately when he or she is getting angry and takes action to correct this before the anger escalates. Conversely, those who are weak in mindfulness feel that they have no control over their actions and that they just happen. The truth is they choose to not expend the mental effort necessary to control their actions, but everyone has the power to do so.
I feel the last few qualities are important because they greatly increase our effectiveness at building lasting relationships with others. These qualities are: 'tolerance', 'patience', 'honesty', 'compassion', 'empathy', 'reciprocation', 'humility', and 'open-mindedness'. I could go on for hours about these (and I may in a future blog), but the meaning and value of most of these qualities are commonly understood. Unfortunately, however, so many people do not adhere to them. I believe that the root reason is that people allow themselves to become so focused on short-term gains, that they neglect these qualities/principles that lead to long-term gains. None of these qualities are easy to practice, but they fertlize the soil of relationships, providing the nourishment necessary for long-lasting success.
In the spirit of the last quality mentioned, I encourage anyone to post comments with their opinions about anything I have said here. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my statements and definitely explain why. Also, let me know if I missed any good qualities. Thanks for your time in reading this (I know it was long)!
1 comment:
Excellent and thought-provoking account.
There is no perfect human, but there are humans more or less willing to confront their imperfection. To address a problem one must first be aware of that problem -- and humility is a cognizance of a flawed existence. Humility is, then, the first step toward perfection. It requires considerable honesty, and in particular honesty towards oneself.
In consideration, we must draw a clear line between those things over which we have control and those things over which we do not. Epictetus, the Roman Stoic philosopher, encourages us to take action on all those matters whose outcome we can affect, and not be concerned with those whose outcome we cannot affect. That said, our reaction to external events, while not always without our control, often is. Perhaps a good bit moreso than we might think. That said, if I put my hand on a hot stove, my reaction isn't entirely under my control -- instinct withdraws my hand before I'm aware of what has happened. I imagine that emotion make work the same way in other situations.
Second, introspection. For every virtue you name, I can give you a corresponding vice. Introspection is good and worthwhile only insofar as it leads you to learn from past actions, either good or bad. Beyond learning from past actions to impact future actions, introspection is dangerous. To spend undue time introspecting on past success is to lose humility and to gloat. No one wants to hear how good you were at football twenty years ago. However, to overly introspect on past failure beyond a useful degree is perhaps worse. Being locked down by guilt serves no purpose if there is nothing left to be done. Being haunted by past memories -- being so fearful of continued failure that you are unwilling to take risks anymore -- servers only to multiply past failure into present stasis. Thus introspection, like any virtue, is good only in moderation.
And mindfulness. To be thinking at all times is an act of obsession. Have you seen the show Monk? The protagonist suffers from only a single ailment -- being overly mindful. While you might get through a day just fine because you don't become mindful of all of the terrible things that might happen, Monk is mindful of all of them. Their net impact is paralysis. We as humans have minds of limited ability. We have since ancient times constructed simplified and condensed versions of reality not to lie to ourselves but because the universe is too complex for our simple brains to handle. When this veil is lifted regarding something like germs or accidents or any such danger, and we become mindful of how periculous everyday life might be, then we become Monk. Indeed, there would be a lot more vegetarians were we all more mindful.
Finally, among the other virtues listed, I'll comment on "reciprocation." While reciprocation is the heart and soul of "eye for an eye" and the death penalty, it is in many ways inconsistent with civilized society. Reciprocation would demand that when a door was slammed shut on you in Japan, you found a way to cause humiliation to the person who did that. Under reciprocation, enemies could never become friends. Under reciprocation, feuds would continue unending. In fact, so often the only way to see a conflict ended is for one party to swallow his pride and not reciprocate harm. Peace comes only through either extermination of the enemy or extermination of reciprocation.
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