Using self-focus to reduce our resentment of others June 3, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development.Tags: Confucius, ego management, personal growth, philosophy, resentment, self-focus, self-improvement
add a comment
In working our personal growth programs, one of our goals might be to minimize the negativity produced by the component of resentment in our emotional makeup.
Disapproval, envy, jealousy, and irritation with the actions, achievements and/or general behaviour of other people are all subsets of the general emotion of resentment.
Because we are doing a lot of tough internal work with trying to improve our own lives, lifestyle, and overall behaviour, it can be easy to fall into the trap of resenting others who are not following a path similar to ours.
This tendency can be the result of transferring the expectations we have for ourselves onto our expectations about other people.
To avoid this, the ancient Chinese sage Confucius suggests we focus primarily on managing our own individual personal actions and emotions:
“If you expect great things from yourself and demand little of others, you’ll keep resentment far away.” (1)
(1) Confucius, The Analects, as translated by David Hinton in his book The Four Chinese Classics
On being generous with our encouragement and praise May 17, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth, Self-Esteem.Tags: Confucius, encouragement, generosity, personal development, personal development potential, personal growth, philosophy, praise
add a comment
One of the concepts that we learn in our work on our personal growth is the principle of creating improvement in our empathy and in our spiritual side by being generous to others with our time and talents.
To this we could add being generous with our recognition of others and with our praise of others.
And, our encouragement should not only be given when someone’s project is not going well, or during a tough period in their life; but also for recognizing their successful achievements and efforts.
All of us all appreciate receiving praise and encouragement when we have done something well.
Generosity towards others with sincere recognition and praise is a mark of strong self-esteem and self-confidence.
Withholding it speaks to insecurity, and small-mindedness.
The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius spoke of encouragement of the good:
“The noble-minded encourage what is beautiful in people and discourage what is ugly in them. Little people do just the opposite.” (1)
(1) Confucius, The Analects, as translated by David Hinton in his book, The Four Chinese Classics
Personal Development Ideas 