Knowledge for the Next Time

WHERE “TOOK” MY SPIRIT?

As adults, life has a way of weighing us down. Toughness may be a necessary advantage, but it can grow tiresome. And despite the bounties in my life, at some point I sensed that I had lost my vitality. It became obvious to me that I was more so existing than living. I didn’t know why, but I eventually realized I was going to have to dig down into my soul to find out.

What makes my pulse pulsate? I found my vitality in that question. It was dehydrated, discolored, and decrepit, but I found it. When had I lost it? How long had it been since I had energy that was pure—not recycled from anger, or hatred, or shame, but raw energy, energy born from a healthy spirit? So what to make of a life so far lived? By all accounts I had it all but still felt hollowed out. What do I do with that in the future?

Life is full of tests, and this road I am on is there to get me where I have asked to go. Like Job, all kings are tested. The crucible scorches, but it doesn’t burn; it sharpens. It changes the color and texture of your resolve. I must remember that future challenges are not just meaningless obstacles but simply new turns on my path. Challenges bring lessons, which bring perspective. Looking back, my life makes more sense now. The present is a divine vantage point, a reward for persistent patience.

LOVE AND RESPECT

I once saw a video by a pastor/doctor about how women feed off of love, while men feed off of respect. When I applied this principle to my own marriage, it seemed to fit. My wife is often offended when I don’t do things that reflect a loving sentiment. And times I’ve gotten irate seem to be related to feeling disrespected. To me, my wife’s “disrespect” can include not appreciating my efforts to support our family, assuming my shortcomings are going to become a way of life, and accusing me of never listening to her.

Luckily, I can use this love/respect principle and our past disagreements toward future ones. Next time I will try to remember to convey a sense of love. Of course, I can’t do this effectively without first dealing with my own hang-ups. That is, while I believe not showing love to my wife has mostly to do with her being so hung up on being loved, I’m similarly hung up on being respected. It works both ways, and in this way, we don’t realize our respective hang-ups are preventing us from properly interacting with one another.

This concept works more broadly than just in romantic relationships, as well. Consider the different hang-ups we have when dealing with people of other nationalities, religions, and backgrounds. So before you can really communicate with anyone, you have to first deal with the hang-ups getting in your way.

HONESTY

Be painfully honest with yourself. You don’t have to broadcast to the world that you can’t set up a conference call, for example, but it helps to know that it isn’t your strong suit. Getting caught up in appearances is really just a waste of time. When the need arises, don’t volunteer to set up a conference call. If you have to, fake it. If you fail, laugh it off with charm and grace. Remember, you can always ask the tech guy. We all have different skills, and no one’s an expert in everything.

It’s tough, though not impossible, to be great at something. But if you focus hard enough, you can excel at almost anything. The flip side, though, is that it’s totally unnecessary to be great at everything. Think about it. And besides, it’s impossible, a wasted effort.

WEALTH

Wealth is comprehensive. Richness is one dimensional. Which would you rather be? For me it’s wealth all the way. I don’t just mean money, either. It’s about being spiritually grounded, mentally sound, physically fit, compassionate, nurturing, light hearted, and intelligent. Forget conference calls. These are the skills we should strive to be great at. This kind of wealth takes on a certain transcendence that is wonderful to experience. Remember, this journey is about a walk to wealth, not a race to rich.

Balance

We are our biggest enemies because we are always with ourselves and notoriously excuse ourselves for more and more foolishness.

At the end of the day, self-development comes down to balance. Everything else is prep—the mise en place (things in place) to balance’s kitchen. Balance is not to be underestimated; it’s about having just the right amount of something, of many things. Balance includes both extremes, so there are definitely going to be times when we have to sit back and just wait, and times when we are going to have to redline it—keep it 100.

Generally, though, balance is an uneasy quality for us mostly because it pushes us to embrace more change than we are comfortable with. Once when I was in a property law lecture in law school, the professor set up a hypothetical that involved what I would characterize as a little math. When he put his carefully crafted hypothetical to one of the students, she paused a long time, clearly thinking hard. Finally she exclaimed, “I came to law school so I wouldn’t have to do math!”

Obviously the incident stuck with me. That was almost ten years ago. I thought it was one of the funniest things I had heard. I taught math for years before that incident, and I thought I had heard all the snarkiest sneers regarding math. People just don’t like math, but that is a whole—nother—conversation.

The point is I always looked at that woman’s inability to do some simple math as an imbalance. Supposedly some people use the right side of their brains, and others use the left side (or some nonsense like that—it never made sense to me). I was a math person, but did that mean I didn’t need to be proficient in reading comprehension?

Well as it turns out, I wasn’t. It was my stint in law school that really pointed it out once and for all. More specifically, the hard evidence came in the form of an entrance aptitude test. I had suspected for many years that something was off, and the test confirmed it. I did indeed have a reading comprehension deficiency. But at least with that realization, my task became clearer to me.

So how does that relate to this discussion? Well, my refusal to accept a deficient reading comprehension drove me to work on correcting it. This was my way of balancing that equation (no pun intended). And let me say, after putting ten solid years into this effort, I feel a million times more balanced—as evidenced by this book. Had I attempted this ten years ago, expressing my thoughts in writing would have been difficult, if not impossible.

In these pages is where my newfound balance gets to shine—very cathartic!

Choice

It all comes down to who you serve.

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That's it for now. Can't give away too much :-)

It's a great read. You're gonna love it !!

Thanks for the support,

Prince.