Personal growth and the need for flexibility April 15, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Tao Te Ching.Tags: emotional flexibility, life purpose, personal development, personal growth, philosophy, positive thinking, Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching
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People seriously working on a program of personal growth realize that having the intellectual and emotional capacity to be flexible is a key requirement for success.
Without having the ability to be flexible, or the willingness to accept or at least consider new ideas, progress in self-improvement will be small or non-existent.
Intellectual and emotional flexibility also contains elements of the state of tranquility, or acceptance, a major ingredient in building peace of mind. And for many studying personal growth, acceptance, or tranquility is and end-goal.
The need for developing an attitude of flexibility is a common thread through wisdom-writing from the texts of the ancients to those of today.
Flexibility or the ability to bend is a quality present in living things – dead entities are not pliable.
The Tao Te Ching (1), for example, alludes to this. Section 76 discusses how dead things are usually stiff, brittle, hard, and dry, and goes on to say:
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will be broken,
The soft and supple will prevail.
(1) Tao Te Ching: A New English Version, as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell, HarperPerennial, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, New York
Choosing between logic and passion in creating your vision January 2, 2013
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Purpose.Tags: achieving goals, Carl Jung, goal setting, goal visualization, life purpose, personal development, personal growth, visualization
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In our efforts to seek out our life purpose or our vision for our lives, we may become aware of the limits of trying to do this on strictly an intellectual basis.
On an intellectual basis, for example, we might be good and talented at performing a specific skill set, so logically that skillset would seem to be something we should focus on.
However, the things we are good at are not necessarily the things we like or enjoy doing. What we enjoy doing, or have our heart involved in, might be an area in which we are not particularly talented.
The choice then can sometimes be between passion for, and the love of doing something, and intellect, or the ability to do something well. Or, viewed another way, a choice between the ego and our intuition.
In making choices for our vision or life purpose, a comment by Carl Jung provides some insight: “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.”
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