The moment you view yourself as more than no one is the moment you hindered your growth.
Growing is trying and failing,
Learning is not knowing,
We think we understand this but we don’t.
We “humble up” if necessary — until it becomes too threatening to humble up,
Too threatening to our self-image.
Then we suddenly are paralysed.
“What will they think of me”
“This is stupid”
“I don’t have to do this”
“There’s a different way”
“I’m actually great”
You’re paralysed because you think you’re someone,
Anything which doesn’t contribute to that ingratiating image is a mortal threat,
You really really care about being “someone” — because to you this is identical with existence. To be is to be “someone”.
But actually you’re no one,
If you truly understood it — you could do anything,
There would only be the DOING OF THE RIGHT THING,
Nothing could hurt your self-image because there was no self-image. Only doing the right thing,
How liberating
You don’t understand this. Everything you know and remember is you being someone,
Could you become enlightened? Yes.
Will you? Unlikely.
What you can however do is be mindful of this phenomenon,
And proactively go against it.
How do you go against it?
If you’re good at something — FAIL on purpose.
If you’re liked and respected — lay bare what’s unattractive about you.
If there’s something attractive about you — get rid of it temporarily or permanently. Don’t let it be a crutch. Don’t rely on it. Free yourself.
And of course continuing doing more and more and more things — and failing more and more and more. Let life humble you.
And when your ego now grows around this concept of “failing a lot and learning a lot” — then get rid of it too. Look at those better than you. Look at those “inferior” to you. Then give to both of them. Learn from both of them. Eradicate illusionary hierarchies.
Finally,
We underestimate just how much ANY self-image hinders us.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that you DO need a certain reputation to navigate in the world.
There’s a reasonable incentive to actually HAVE an EGO, a REPUTATION, a BRAND — and protect it.
Even that must be shattered, when necessary.
It happens time and time again in history. An organisation grows so big that it becomes utterly immobile. The only way out of the plateau is for it to become DESTROYED. It’s called creative destruction.
It’s very likely that you will have to do the same.
You will practically reach a point in your life in which the world will recognize you as “someone”, and have a very good idea of what that someone is, what he represents, what he’s capable of, what he’s good for.
And to move forward you will actually have to shatter it.
<
p style=”-qt-paragraph-type: empty; -qt-block-indent: 0; text-indent: 83.95px; font-family: ‘Cormorant’; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: 456; margin: 0px 0px 10.65px 0px;”>