You face now a heavier burden than any generation before you. Choices abound in your life, but you will not always recognize them for the distractions they are. Because new options for entertainment are constantly thrust before you, you have not had real clarity. The fog of motion surrounds you. It is there in the background of all your memories, blinding you to your desires.
Category: Transforming Your Identity
Self-Sabotage Negates All Progress
Influence comes from two places. Force comes from the outer world, composed of every character and situation you’ll ever know. Force also comes from within. There is an inner world of values, concepts, and associations to guide you on your path. A weak inner world guarantees that your progress will fester, making you slave to external forces.
Arbitrary Self-Importance Will Taint Your Identity
You often wish a thing were true, but this does not make it so. Reality only bends in its own way, never totally mastered or obeyed. A thought originating in your mind is no more real or important than any other. You alone are not the determiner. It takes practice and skill to align your mind with what is.
Embrace Your Intellect, Even if it Alienates You
The human race is divided by its diversity of traits. This is a natural and beautiful phenomenon. Given time, we steadily branch outward in every conceivable direction from the generic template of what it means to be human.
Greatness is Rightful Action in Trying Times
Nothing is ever stable. Without warning, life demands us to go beyond what we think we can do. These moments test us. We cower away from the strangeness of the new demands, or we prove our worth by acting. Whether we fail or succeed in these spontaneous exams is no matter. What matters is that we are elevated to something better than we were before.
Be Confident Above All Else
A person is more than the knowledge they hold and the body they control. A person is, fundamentally, awareness of themselves. The way you see yourself changes everything about you. Thinking and feeling exactly the way you are is the root of confidence. Anything that strays from the mark of reality will color all your actions.
Learn from Prior Heroes
In every enduring mythological structure, the hero learns his path in response to his challenges. Black mirrors summon growth to new heights and a shift of identity. The impetus for action propels him to the next level of meaning. He feels most heroic when he can see the effects of his actions.
Play is a Necessary Mindset
Playful activity is the doorway to personal growth. Guard yourself against losing this precious gift as you develop. Ignore the cries of the more experienced and retired players around you. Retaining the benefits of childhood does not disqualify you from the advantages of adulthood.
Deep Empathy is Overwhelming
The great task that awaits the individual who becomes secure in his identity… is to share that identity with others. You need to know with every bit of who you are that you are not alone in the world. Consider deeply, for a moment, what that implies about how you interact with other people.
Explore New Ways of Living
Any inherited rules for how to live are a personal mental prison. You will continue to carry them until you discover life’ s many alternatives. So long as you do anything because you think it is what you ought to do, your are not living your own life. You are living as a manifestation of another mind. You are not true to yourself because you have not discovered what that even means.