Personal growth: Developing the spirit of generosity May 11, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Tao Te Ching.Tags: abundance, generosity, Lao-tzu, Law of Reciprocation, personal development, personal growth, Personal growth and development, self-improvement, Tao Te Ching
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One of the precepts that we soon come across in a serious study of personal growth and development is what we might call an attitudinal + action version of the Law of Reciprocation.
In the case of bringing the concept of generosity into our self-improvement program, the law is straightforward: give and you will receive.
As we increase our self-awareness, and our knowledge of the principles of personal growth as it applies to our attitudes, emotions, and behaviour patterns, we discover how generosity can benefit us in many ways; in addition to helping the recipients of our generosity.
Although the true spirit of generosity requires that our actions be done without expectation of reward, nevertheless we gain as much, and possibly more, than those we are generous towards.
We can be generous with our time, our resources, our knowledge and skills, our understanding, our acceptance, and more.
The ancient Chinese wisdom writer Lao Tzu stated the concept concisely in this excerpt from chapter 81 of the Tao Te Ching:
A sage never hoards:
the more you do for others,
the more plenty is yours,
and the more you give to others,
the more abundance is yours. (1)
(1) Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching, as translated by David Hinton in his book, The Four Chinese Classics
Personal growth: Making your creative talent accessible May 10, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth, Overcoming Fear.Tags: achieving goals, creative talent, Emily Dickinson, originality, personal development, personal growth, philosophy, self-improvement
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If you are planning to include an imaginative component in your self-improvement program, such as creative writing, you may want to consider “going public” with your output, rather than keeping your originality to yourself.
If your creative talent (writing, painting, or other artistic pursuit) is something that you want to engage in primarily for personal therapeutic purposes (as with journaling, for example) there can be valid reasons why you don’t want the public to see your work.
However if you are seeking greater self-actualization or self-realization through your creative talent and feel you have “something to say” that other people could benefit from, then reaching a larger public could be helpful to both you and your audience. Showing other people your creative work can be part of your process of individuation.
Until relatively recently however reaching a public market in the creative sphere was largely controlled by gatekeepers in the “art world” and the publishing industry, to give two examples.
Now however, with free platforms for expressing your creativity, such as wordpress.com, you can have a blog to publish and distribute your creative content.
This does take some courage, however, and a willingness to accept whatever the public reaction might be to your work. But the effort to reach an audience with your originality could ultimately be inwardly rewarding and thereby be a significant accomplishment in your personal growth program
There is an old aphorism that there is nothing sadder than for a person to go through their entire life not letting their talents shine, and then “dying with their music still inside them.”
This is essentially what happened with the American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) who, for various reasons, kept the vast majority of her 1,800 poems hidden in her bedroom. Only a handful of her poems were published during her lifetime. The remainder were published after her death.
So, she never got the satisfaction of reaching the public with her originality, nor could the public at that time benefit from her creative efforts. Dickinson is now recognized as one of America’s most outstanding and unique poetic voices
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