Ever make lists of goals that you hope to keep? This can be in the form of New Year's resolutions, mid-year crisis (oh no! I haven't kept any of my New Year's resolutions!), turning point in various eras of one's life (end of high school/beginning of college, end of college, end of a career, the turning point of a career, retirement, etc.), and so on and so forth. Have you ever looked back at those goals (stumbling across the list years later) to realize (with horror) that nothing has changed?
That happened to me when I graduated college. I looked at a list I made when I graduate high school and realized that I didn't get better or become a better person. I had gotten worse. I had obtained some nasty habits, forgotten a lot of good ones, and in general had become a person that I wasn't proud of. Granted, I wasn't living a destructive lifestyle in the sense that I wasn't hurting anyone (myself included) but I also wasn't living an active life (physically, mentally, and emotionally). It's the kind of stasis that comes from coasting and I realized that I had wanted more from myself and I had hoped to gain much more in college. I don't mean to say that I didn't gain anything in college because I learned a lot (in obvious ways) and I definitely enjoyed the college experience. However, from a self-developmental point of view, nothing changed and I had only gotten worse.
I think somewhere along the line after that I realized that I needed to be more active about the person I wanted to be. If I want to change, I can't keep thinking "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow." because in the end, I'm putting off the person I want to become and when that happens, well, I'll simply continue to be unhappy or dissatisfied with the current me.
There's always that balance that one must have between bettering oneself and being happy with who one is because in constantly trying to improve oneself, there's almost an inherent thought that the current self is not good enough and thus needs improvement. I think I went through cycles of self-deprecation and contentment with my self for quite some time until I realized the two are not as closely connected as one thinks.
At any rate, I could get into this huge long (wordy and to be honest, boring) testimonial about how I changed my way of thinking but the point is this: I recently came across another one of my lists and realized that of the 3 things I listed, I had accomplished (more or less) two. To be (somewhat) active in changing myself, I had progressed.
Life is supposed to be an active engagement of the self with not only the world but with oneself in constantly encouraging to better oneself and the environment around oneself. It may not always happen, but with effort comes results.
