Life today is faster than ever before. There’s very little space for thought. And so we can easily get swept away by a tidal wave and find ourselves lost without ever realising what happened. Yet, ultimately, what will define our life is the choices we make as to how we will invest the time we have.
Our era has so perfected our survival systems that we can be fed through a fast food restaurant in under 5 minutes without even needing to leave our car. A brand new flat pack home can be built from foundations to complete structure in just six weeks. Our technological geniuses have raised our expectation levels so that we expect instant gratification in all areas. And anything that doesn’t fit in between ad breaks can seem to be making frustratingly slow progress.
The result is that many people grow up believing that quantity of experiences is more important than quality. So we choose more mediocrity over less quality. We consume rather than savour.
But more than this, we come to believe that mediocre success is better than striving for greatness and not quite reaching. We come to believe that nothing in life should be too hard. That we should never fail, struggle or endure discomfort. And if we do, then it’s our failure. It’s a sign that we aren’t good enough. If we were good enough, we would succeed first time.
Growth Comes When We Push Past Our Limitations
Yet it is in our struggle that we are defined and formed. It is in the process of experiencing discomfort that we are transformed.
For example, if we want to look our best physically the only lasting solution is exercise including resistance exercise to strengthen and tone the muscles. Many people lift weights at the gym, but few understand the process. When we use up the stored energy in our muscles, they call for extra nutrients. This is carried in the blood and if done in enough intensity, will cause the muscle to flood with blood and ultimately burst. This causes the body, during it’s time of rest, to rebuild itself to be stronger and more capable.
In the same way, it is our emotional and psychological struggles that form our character, our resilience and our capacity to achieve. The great myth of our culture is that success is the result of our inherent greatness, when really our greatness is formed through the rigours of intelligent practise. Nature demonstrates to us that overnight success is a myth if we look at the growth of Bamboo.
If you were to look at all the plants in the world with a mind to their utility and cost of production. Bamboo would surely be at the top of your list. It’s supremely adaptable. We’re all familiar with it’s use as food for Panda’s, but it is also used in flooring, shelter, in tools and utensils (used for the needle in Alexander Graham Bell’s first phonograph and as a filament in Edison’s light bulb) and even as a suspension bridge.
It’s efficient as the fastest growing plant on our planet. It has a 3 – 5 year return on investment as opposed to the usual 10 for hardwood trees. It can seem to grow overnight, at a lightening pace of 18 inches a day, from nothing up to a height of 100 foot.
Yet the reason it can grow so rapidly is that it has a very different pattern of growth to most trees. For four years, instead of growing up, it lays a network of roots that allow the Bamboo plant a massive source of energy. Once these are developed, the plant is flooded with energy. And since there’s nowhere else to flow this energy to, the only way is up, and so the plant grows massively.
Just as plants need time and energy to grow, so too do we need time and energy to grow emotionally, psychologically, socially and spiritually. If we exchange our time and energy for instant gratification, we inhibit our growth.
We all have the same amount of hours in a day. It is how we use that time that determines what skills and resources we acquire. If we invest our time and energy on developing social networks, deep and extensive knowledge base, technical skills and better organisational skills, we lay the foundations for rapid future growth.
How are you using your time?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
i like the comparison. puts things into perspective.
Thanks James, glad it was useful for you.
” If we invest our time and energy on developing social networks, deep and extensive knowledge base, technical skills and better organisational skills, we lay the foundations for rapid future growth.”
Geez…probably true, but sounds very corporate, and doesn’t inspire me to work harder, but does inspire me to comment – so thank you for that. The hardest thing is to keep going when you’ve failed and to believe that you’ve actually achieved something when you have nothing concrete to show for it.
Greatness itself is a bit of a nebulous concept too. Who defines what it is? It seems to me that most people think the level of greatness of a person is directly proportional to the number of people who view you as great. There are many ways to achieve that, not all of them honest. Also, some kinds of greatness are negative – the superlative tyrant might be one, or ambiguous – the great warrior. For example, some of the so-called great explorers in early colonial Australian history have since been shown to be not quite so great. (Eg see http://www.infobluemountains.net.au/history/crossing_3ex.htm).
I reckon you need to aspire to something you can really believe that you can achieve, great or not. When the beliefs match your capabilities, then you achieve it. If belief and capability don’t match, you fail. You learn something about yourself in the process and your beliefs change, which brings me back to my first question which was how do you keeping going after failure. How do you assess your capabilities in the light of failure? How much failure should you endure before you give up? Should you martyr yourself to your cause, or find a different cause? For every starving artist that succeeded there were many more that did not. Of those that did not, some moved on to something else and had an ordinary life, and some remained starving artists their entire lives. Most of us would rather have the ordinary life than risk being a starving artist for our whole lives, and to me, that seems pretty sensible.
Hi Robert,
I guess it was a little dull. (Must try harder)
Some great questions. Who defines greatness? How long to persist?
What a great topic for a post(s). I’m getting to work to answer them.
I like this comparison it makes so much sense.
Thanks Alicia, glad it was useful for you.
The key for rapid growth is to invest our time in people. In each other rather then things. People are so busy trying to make the fast buck and acquire all the
the goodies that they forget to invest in each other. My wish is that with what is going on in this world it will bring people back to what really matters, working together for each other, rather then investing everything in who can be the best.
Debbie
Hi Debbie,
Very true. I think that the last 150 years has been the era of increasing efficiency. Now there are fewer ways to cut costs. Low skilled work has been outsourced to the lowest wage cost. Automation has shrunk manual workers pretty much, as far to the bone as it can go.
Most of the gains in productivity and innovation are coming from more creativity, better organised, focused people who can work together. And so I think the world is gradually starting to shift in this direction. Not in favour of caring over $$$, but because in the long run, it also makes financial sense.
This makes a lot of sense but what if you find it hard to reach out to people because of some past issues?
Hi Eskete,
Then the obstacle you have is getting over the past issues and learning to reach out anyway. You need to resolve that issue. Life throws you new challenges and problems everyday. You need to travel light and clean up as you go.
That’s why the key is developing the skill to resolve stress as quick as you can.