Archive for November, 2009
Sculpting Your Life
Posted by admin in Succes and happiness on November 25, 2009
Many years ago, the English essayist, Joseph Addison likened education to sculpture when he
wrote, “What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.”
Think for a moment about what education has meant in your own life. Your schooling has been
such an important determinant in getting you where you are today. It stands to reason that the
knowledge you acquire from now on will be the enabling power to get you where you want to go
in the future. It all depends on whether you choose to expand your life by continuing to acquire
knowledge or whether you decide to be content with the future your existing education holds for
you.
But yet, educators and others tell us over and over again that much of our formal schooling—
even through college—is really designed to teach us how to think—and how to learn. Emerson
reinforced this idea with the comment, “The things taught in our colleges and schools are not an
education but the means to an education.” They all are saying, of course, that we spend most of
our years in schools preparing for a lifetime of education. It seems to me that it’s a terrible waste
when we don’t take advantage of all that preparation.
The respected contemporary American educator, Bel Kaufman, spoke to this point with the
observation, “Education is not a product . . . it is a process, a never-ending one.”
(R. Stuberg)
What drives a man to follow a certain path in life
Posted by admin in Succes and happiness on November 11, 2009
What drives a man to follow a certain path in life? What makes him do the things that he routinely does daily?
The reason for everyone’s actions, that which gives purpose and direction is called, in a general consensus, motivation.
I am a logical and intuitive thinker. I like to make analogies. And I believe that while the modern man has greately evolved in the last century, not to mention the last few hundreds of years, the evolution was mainly in our thinking, in our ‘higher and evolved’ parts of the brain, and very little development has taken place in the more primitive functions of the brain. I’m not a scientist, but I have read the results of the works of scientists that were written in articles along the years, so my assumptions are based on those.
Because of this nonuniformely evolution of the brain, today’s man still reacts to some stimuli in a similar manner to cavemen. Take fear for example. While the first homo-erectus felt fear when actually justified – his life being in danger, the modern man fears the loss of his job, expressing his opinions to a larger audience, talking to a beautiful woman or losing money at poker. But guess what?! Our body does not know the difference between fears and responds in the exact same way as it did when men went hunting and women remained in caves. It freezes, blood rushes to the vital organs, adrenaline kicks in… in other words it prepares us for the fight – or – flight response to the perceived threat.
So what motivated our primitive ancestors? I believe it’s pain. Well… not pain itself but actually it’s avoiding pain. This is a fundamental and biologically driven need that motivated him in the short term. Because he didn’t think long term. No, sir, he had no targets, no goals to pursuit. And the analogy is that so is 95% of todays population. Motivated by the short term pain avoidance (not doing homework because it HURTS), he has no long term plans, he lives for not having pain today, and gives up easily when things get difficult.
Also, the masses are primarily motivated by extrinsic motivators, such as material possessions and money. The great achievers are motivated intrinsically, by their dreams, desires and passions.
External motivation is short lived, while internal motivation is nearly impossible to exhaust until the goal is achieved.
One “secret” to motivating yourself is discovering what you will fight ofr when the going gets tough. Ask yourself the question: “Why must i suffer?” A world-class athlete, for example, will answer this question with the vision he has carefully consturcted, and he’ll keep on fighting. Since the masses lack this mental clarity and have no reason to suffer, they quit as soon as the pain kicks in.
Stay focused and have great desires!