This is where the ever-absent holistic view comes to the picture. We go to the gym to work on our bodies, and get the appearance we desire, this desire often arises out of a glimpse we catch of some perfectly toned embodiment, showcasing himself through some form of media.
This is usually the typical way we lay the basis for our goals and begin the pursuit. If you give it a thought, it does sound a bit infantile, like seeing a candy through some store window and start wanting it.
What of the mind and other aspects that constitute our body? If we consider every aspect, focus on every detail, then there is a chance of confronting and assessing these aspects which we otherwise overlook.
What we skip out on…
1) You will know for sure if that is the road you want to travel, once aware of all the things involved in that journey you will either come to realize that, it is not a path meant for you, and it was just the completely accomplished, appealing end result.
2) If you still chose to pursue that goal, you will now be already prepared entirely, not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, socially, in short, wholly.
3) Obstacles will just be steps you have to continue walking to progress. Some mental steps, some physical, each building up as a grand staircase that will guide you through to the end.
4) A failure would not be overwhelming, it would rather be a learning lesson and you being aware of the areas that were lacking, the points you ignored, such a moment will teach you more than any other experience.
But that is not what happens now does it? Do we implement this process across all domains? The opposite. See and decide. WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get, this way, WYSITOTYWG, What You See Is The Only Thing You Will Get.
This process unnaturally works in all the domains of our life. It has been the premeditated path for identifying and defining our goals for long. A parent reads of someones’ child doing well in some field, now that parent starts setting boundaries building brick blocks around his own child, in a wishful attempt to create a similar story, unknowingly caging the child and restricting his abilities and exploration of new avenues. One prevalent effect is the glorification of the achievement overshadowing the underlying considerations, the processes and the efforts.
A parent’s mind identifies and picks up something which begins the lifelong arduous process of force feeding the child with this notion, similar to the individual yearning for a desirous body, with the only difference, in this case, it was self-imposition.
This step is identification, which then, as a result, is followed by a life long process of self-comparison with something the mind thinks of as perfect and continues to reinforce this belief, in turn draining the subject physically and emotionally.
We have this image in mind, obtained in some likely manner as above, then we desperately start building up thoughts around that image, followed by discovering paths and defining goals to reach that point. What do we miss out? The main attributes, our own core traits, that will matter when the goal chasing process begins. What else? The details about the process needed to get there.
Everyone loves a artfully built sand castle, but do you love the process of building it, studying and analyzing the fine details, understanding the nitty-gritties, surviving the ups and downs, progressing with infallible determination, persisting even after a multitude of failures, restarting from bottom level, ground zero, right up to the top. If your answer is yes, only then can your castle be as grand as you imagine it to be.
You have some notion of perfection in some matter, in your mind, you do not make that perfection your belief, you make the art that goes behind it your belief, then you attain that perfection which you seek.
Part I: Why Our Educational System, Society, Family, and Parents Fails Us
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