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Personal growth: Confucius – look within for the truth April 24, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth.
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By Dennis Mellersh

As wisdom writers both ancient and modern have told us, if we want to engage in universal personal improvement, we should start with ourselves – it is the path to understanding others.

And let us not give advice to others until we have thoroughly examined ourselves and taken steps to correct our own personal shortcomings.

Confucius succinctly reminds of these truths in The Analects:

“A person’s faults are all of a piece. Recognizing your faults is a way of understanding humanity.”*

“Adept Kung was forever comparing and criticizing people. The master said, ‘To have time for such things, Kung must have already perfected himself completely. As for me, I am not so lucky.’” *

* Confucius, The Analects, translated by David Hinton in his book The Four Chinese Classics

Personal development and the avoidance of extremes April 7, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.
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By Dennis Mellersh

Both ancient and modern advice on methods for living our lives better suggests that “the middle way” is the most effective and satisfying path to realizing our self-actualization potential

If we do all of our work at breakneck speed, we will make mistakes, burn out, or both

If we drink or eat to excess we will harm our health

If we are too uncompromising, it’s hard to be empathetic

If we are always intense it’s hard to see the value of balance

And, this from Confucius:

The Master said: “When everyone hates a person, you should investigate thoroughly. And when everyone loves a person, you should also investigate thoroughly.” (1)

(1) Confucius, The Analects, translated by David Hinton in his book, The Four Chinese Classics, published by Counterpoint.