Episode 14-Five quotes to live by in 2010
Please, leave a comment or email me: eric@giftednessrevealed.com
Every year since I was 14 years old I have always taken some time right before New Year’s to jot down some thoughts about the previous year and think about what I wanted to see happen in the coming year. This has evolved into an important annual exercise for me, and yields quite an expansive list of goals (see my last year’s list). I find the exercise to be both challenging and rewarding at the same time. I not only take the time to consider some serious goals for the coming year, but I review my goals for the past year and essentially grade my performance. This both helps me to evaluate how I did, and also consider whether or not I need to change the way I set my goals, for instance if I was too adventurous or unrealistic.
This year I thought I’d try something new in addition to my regular routine. As an avid reader I tend to acquire a great many quotes throughout the year. Every time I read something intriguing I open up my brainstorming program (voodoopad) and jot it down. Sometimes I go through these pages of quotes for inspiration, other times for encouragement. So I thought this year that I would share five quotes that I particularly enjoy and consider the message behind them as I use them to remind me of things I need to change for the coming year.
- “Never confuse motion with action” – Benjamin Franklin.
I use this quote so often, I am surprised it isn’t tattooed somewhere on my body. In very simple words Benjamin Franklin, famous for his pursuit of what he considered the essential 13 virtues, states that movement by itself does not equate to the accomplishment of goals. In fact, a great many times we may find ourselves moving without any real purpose. That energy is precious and cannot be wasted.
It reminds me of my running coach who once told me he had never seen someone work so hard to get nowhere before. He pointed out that my stride was more vertical than horizontal, a fact that caused me to use up all of my energy to bounce up and down rather than run down the track. I remind myself of that whenever I started getting too busy, especially when my home life starts to suffer. Am I really being that productive, or am I just running in a million different directions at once?
- “In order to become an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.” -Albert Einstein
Consider how authentically you live your life, and with how much conviction and integrity you are true to yourself. Do you find yourself trying to please everyone, or constantly molding yourself to other people’s expectations? Believe it or not, that is a very common mistake for gifted people who just want to fit in, especially children. Dr. Miraca Gross of the University of New South Wales explains this destructive behavior in an article entitled “The ‘me’ behind the mask: Intellectually gifted students and the search for identity.
“To be valued within a peer culture which values conformity, gifted young people may mask their giftedness and develop alternative identities which are perceived as more socially acceptable. The weaving of this protective mask requires the gifted child to conceal their love of learning, their interests which differ from those of age-peers, and their advanced moral development. If this assumed identity does indeed bring them the social acceptance they seek, the gifted child may become afraid to take off their mask.”
Will this year be a year of exercises in conformity, or will you break out of that mold and take a bold new step toward living authentically and wholly you?
- “There is no way to be intelligently assertive unless we know who we intend to be in the world, what we stand for, and why.” Dr. Mary-Elaine Jacobsen
Yes, I quote Dr. Jacobsen a lot, and for good reason. When I first read these words they practically leaped off the page and slapped me in the face! I knew immediately that I had absolutely no clue about who I wanted to be. All I knew for sure was that I was not the person that everyone had always told me I was. I was not stupid, I was not irreverent or disrespectful or uncooperative, I was not arrogant, and I was not a lost cause. From as early as I can remember I always had this feeling like I should have this giant glowing sign above my head that said “MISUNDERSTOOD”, because everywhere I went, no matter how much I tried, my efforts were always met with the opposite of their intentions, and I ALWAYS walked away crestfallen and broken hearted. What I discovered, however, was that by fighting the image I perceived everyone had of me, I was actually shadow boxing with myself, and I was wearing myself out. Rather than spend all of that time defending myself against misguided statements, I could be defining myself through my actions, and actually start moving toward the life that I really wanted to have. Having a secret side of yourself you feel like you can’t share with anyone is an absolutely miserable experience. But even worse is the feeling like you are being convicted of another person’s crimes, and that if they’d only understand where you were coming from everything would be different.
The reality is, as the quote illustrates, that unless you really know who you are, you will always be fighting those imaginary battles and ultimately making things much more difficult than they need to be. Do I need to prove my intelligence to anyone? No, I know what I know, and that’s plenty enough for me. Do I need to point out other people’s faults or shortcomings, especially in public venues like business meetings or presentations? No. Just because I notice these things doesn’t make it appropriate to become editor of the world. True self-confidence is quiet, respectful, dignified, and relaxed. Well-balanced self-control is the ultimate outcome of truly knowing who you are. Until you do this, you will be like the injured stray cat, desperately in need, but attacking anyone who comes to try and help.
- “Always do what you are afraid to do.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
This one is pretty self-explanatory, but probably needs the most emphasis. If you are going to achieve anything in this life you will have to be willing to challenge yourself, and that means in areas that are uncomfortable or even scary to you. Do you like to run? If so then challenging yourself to run farther this year is not truly a challenge because it is nearly an extension of your interest. Forcing yourself to get over your fear of speaking in public by presenting at next year’s conference, however, would be a huge challenge. Examine yourself closely (like you need any encouragement there, right) and I am sure you will find areas that you have intentionally left alone for far too long. What is stopping you from tackling that obstacle, forgiving that person, climbing that mountain, quitting that addiction, making that commitment, or addressing that issue? As I have said many times before, fear is only your appraisal of the situation- not the situation itself. Step out of your comfort zone this year and see what you can achieve.
- “The highest result of education is tolerance.” -Helen Keller
Helen Keller is one of my all-time greatest hereos. Her strength and determination are absolutely astounding, and always serve as a great inspiration to me. So when I came across this quote in one of her books, I knew I had to keep it close.
When I was very young, I tended to rebel against anything conventional. I did this because I hated how many people I saw merely following the leader and I felt like I was being inauthentic by doing the same. Of course, in the third grade this is not well tolerated, and I subsequently got in a lot of trouble.
As I grew older, my dislike of convention continued, but I started a different, even more destructive trend of rebellion. I started to become very cold and calloused toward people- particularly toward people that did what they were told, stayed in line, wore what the magazines said were cool, watched what the reviews said were good TV shows or movies, etc. This of course only served to further distance me from my peers until at one point I literally found myself completely without any friends, all alone in a big city with no one to blame but myself.
It was another six years before I learned how foolish and contradictory my behavior and attitude was. While there is nothing wrong in desiring to be unique and stray from being sucked into the popular parade, doing so at the expense of your fellow human being is no way to live your life, and is actually quite backwards if you think about it.
I had to learn, as Helen Keller illustrates in her quote, how to tolerate the differences in my fellow human beings as much as I was asking them to tolerate my differences. Further more I had to learn to appreciate, and even love, them. After all, if in fact the numbers are to believed, the population of people that fall into the category of “gifted” is roughly 2% of the total population. Consider that next time you are in a room full of 50 other people. Does that thought make you feel lonely? If you are thinking that you can find that great gifted commune somewhere and live eternally in intellectual and creative bliss surrounded by others exactly like you, then you are wrong. The reality is that you and I must learn to accept both ourselves and the people around us, and integrate ourselves fully into the world in which we live. Failure to do so will only yield in our further dismemberment from our most primal identity- our humanity.
Amazingly (or perhaps not), once I began to allow myself to be comfortable and accepting of others, I found myself making friends much more easily, and making far fewer enemies. There may be something truly unique about you that sets you apart from a great portion of the population, but shouldn’t our goal to be to live fully with our neighbors in spite of that difference? All I know is that when I started seeking to find the similarities instead of the differences, I found the world a lot more friendly and inviting place for me.
So, this year I am going to keep these quotes close at hand so they can remind me of lessons learned. I hope you found them interesting too! ~
