Plato said: “The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.”
Self-mastery is one of the most important goals that we can adopt for ourselves. Without it, we won't have the integrity, work ethic, or perseverance to accomplish anything worthwhile in this life. It's a simple concept but it isn't an easy one. It takes a lifetime of dedication and refinement, striving each day to make yourself better. The mastery has so many levels - it can work on a moral level, a knowledge/learning level, but rarely, if ever, comes without a conscious, focus effort in order to become master of something.
One of the goals that I have for myself is to use the free time that I have for more important purposes. I would like to use more of my free time to read books that will 1) fire up my imagination, or 2) help me think in different ways and with various perspectives. This week we learned that time the true currency that we spend. How often do I spend that precious currency on insubstantial, sometimes even worthless, things. I desire also do develop other hobbies in my life that will allow me to grow as a person. Today, on Memorial Day, my wife and I plan to beautify our yard by growing plants and flowers in it. It's our first time really trying to garden. We may fail miserably, but that's part of mastery that I think is essential. We all want to become masters of something, but don't want to pay the price of failure to get there. Failure needs to have the negative connotation removed from it in our minds. Failure is the learning process. Watching my 1 year old daughter, I recognize that. She will try walking, but fall down. She doesn't lay there saying, "Well, I tried that walking thing, didn't work out. Guess I'll just crawl the rest of my life." No matter how many times she stumbles, she just keeps going. We must continue to get up, brush ourselves off, and move forward if we want to become the masters of anything worthwhile.
Self-mastery is one of the most important goals that we can adopt for ourselves. Without it, we won't have the integrity, work ethic, or perseverance to accomplish anything worthwhile in this life. It's a simple concept but it isn't an easy one. It takes a lifetime of dedication and refinement, striving each day to make yourself better. The mastery has so many levels - it can work on a moral level, a knowledge/learning level, but rarely, if ever, comes without a conscious, focus effort in order to become master of something.
One of the goals that I have for myself is to use the free time that I have for more important purposes. I would like to use more of my free time to read books that will 1) fire up my imagination, or 2) help me think in different ways and with various perspectives. This week we learned that time the true currency that we spend. How often do I spend that precious currency on insubstantial, sometimes even worthless, things. I desire also do develop other hobbies in my life that will allow me to grow as a person. Today, on Memorial Day, my wife and I plan to beautify our yard by growing plants and flowers in it. It's our first time really trying to garden. We may fail miserably, but that's part of mastery that I think is essential. We all want to become masters of something, but don't want to pay the price of failure to get there. Failure needs to have the negative connotation removed from it in our minds. Failure is the learning process. Watching my 1 year old daughter, I recognize that. She will try walking, but fall down. She doesn't lay there saying, "Well, I tried that walking thing, didn't work out. Guess I'll just crawl the rest of my life." No matter how many times she stumbles, she just keeps going. We must continue to get up, brush ourselves off, and move forward if we want to become the masters of anything worthwhile.
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