It's all practice. So if you practice being a new you, you will become good at being that person. And it so happens that's how we become good at our first selves. We just don't remember it, and it was likely unintentional. As we mature, we are given every right to choose the adult we wish to be, and how to behave. But making the leap requires incentive, intention, and some real effort, because practice is labor. Except when it becomes a labor of love, we become empowered by it, not tired by it. That is why passion is paramount, and we should all have a passion for who we are.
> Except when it becomes a labor of love, we become empowered by it, not tired by it. That is why passion is paramount, and we should all have a passion for who we are.
The trick is, and what I learned over time - labour comes first, then comes the passion. Rarely it is the other way around. Waiting for passion to strike is why a lot of people (recent version of myself included!) are stuck.
Passion always comes. It's what you're doing when it comes, whether you can recognize it, and whether you can run with it. Choosing to be gritty first is not a requirement. Chances are, you'd have still found passion elsewhere doing other things. You've just found a way to successfully seek it in labor.
The problem is:
1) We hate to admit it sometimes. If you're reading a comic book or playing video games, we make it not count. Parents are guilty of this with their children also. Passion is not a choice between school subjects or job titles. There are kids with a passion for picking their nose. It won't get them anywhere, but they toyed around, discovered it, and found it. It's passion. It's what turns you on.
2) It can be passion against. If you hate your job, it isn't because you don't have passion for it, and no, no amount of waiting will grant it. What you have is passion against it. And this is where most of the anti-passion sentiment comes from. They find passion too illusive and metaphysical, all not knowing it came and passed already. It was the loathing they had for their job. Sadly, they overcame it. They overcame their passion.
3) We don't act on it. Unless you're still picking your nose, we need to act on our passion more. There are youtube millionaires that play video games all day. Someone has to draw comic books, and they're all adults. Not all passions will lead to professions, but it should still be your goal.
Of course, passion does not equal happiness nor success. It's what you do with it.
Anecdotally, the parallels between love is uncanny. 1) We often hate to admit who we fell for, 2) we can be passionate against someone (opposite side of the same coin, just see 90% of romantic comedies), and 3) if we don't act on it, it never flourishes.
And love does not equal happiness nor success. It's what you do with it.
And we always fall in love. Maybe it's just who you're staring at when it happens...
I am unconvinced by the idea that passion comes only after labour.
Passion feels to me like a gift from the universe, you never know when or where it will strike. It feels intuitive to me that no amount of struggle will make me have a passion for cleaning toilets.
Of course, cleaning enough toilets could create a passion in me for not cleaning toilets, but I'm hopeful that there's easier ways to achieve it.
Also it feels like when I'm engaged in an activity as unpleasant as cleaning toilets, that expense of energy is actively preventing me from thinking about things that I am passionate about.
Well if that's the case, then whether we will undergo a personality change is not necessarily entirely in our control, because we may not develop the passion for the labor of personality change. It just might not "strike".
> So if you practice being a new you, you will become good at being that person.
Yes and no. According to my subjective perception of life you only know in hindsight whether you were practicing or not. Sometimes you feel really enthusiastic about something and decide to work very disciplined at it (and really do it) but you get no results and are no wiser as to why that is. Other times you don't even intend to do anything about something you want to change but your subconsciousness practices "for you" so to speak and all of a sudden you do the right things in the right moment without understanding why you're able to do it.
In fact, for many areas of my life I feel like I improve most when I can afford to do nothing for weeks and all of a sudden I get hit by one or two massive insights. It's sort of like all the information required for a change is already there but my brain needs massive amounts of thinking capacity to compute and suggest the right actions.
> you only know in hindsight whether you were practicing or not
You are always practicing. It's only in hindsight whether you know you were doing it right.
If you're late for work, you've just practiced being late for work. If you made an excuse, you just practiced making an excuse. If you lie, you just practiced lying. And that's why we're screwed. The notion that practice only happens when we decide we're practicing is nonsense. If you lie 90% of the time, you will become a great liar. That's the nature of practice.
Take an aspiring athlete. They all practice hard. The advantage isn't in practice. If your shooting form is bad, every shot you take with that form is reinforcing a bad practice. That's why getting it right and only doing it right is so important. Taking it slow and being intentional with every action is the only way to do this. What we must practice is mindful control of every action, because it's all practice.
This is also why "pretend" is just another word for practice. To pretend requires being mindfully in control of your actions.
It's all practice. So if you practice being a new you, you will become good at being that person. And it so happens that's how we become good at our first selves. We just don't remember it, and it was likely unintentional. As we mature, we are given every right to choose the adult we wish to be, and how to behave. But making the leap requires incentive, intention, and some real effort, because practice is labor. Except when it becomes a labor of love, we become empowered by it, not tired by it. That is why passion is paramount, and we should all have a passion for who we are.