Author: cbarney.45

Education – it’s not just about schooling

“Education is the movement from darkness to light.” – Allan Bloom

Go to the light! Don’t stay hidden in the dark…

Consume new material, information, and ideas. Take time to think about what you just read and learned.

Go in with an open mind and your initial thoughts about a subject can change.

Process the information and put it to use. If you’re not educating yourself (in the form of experiencing new things, reading/watching/listening to new things, etc), you are keeping yourself ignorant. You are hiding in the dark.

On competition – with others and yourself

When doing anything, you’re not just competing against other people. You’re really competing against yourself.

Do not be content or disheartened based on the result. Be content or disheartened by judging your level of effort. Did you give as much effort as you are willing to in order to get the result that you desired? That’s the real question…if you’re not happy with the result, change your effort, your strategy, or both.

Spreading light

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton

If you’re not the type of person who loves creating joy/happiness (usually an outgoing/extroverted person with a positive outlook on life), you can still spread joy/happiness by returning the favor. Smile, be polite, ask how someone’s day is going and genuinely care to listen to their response, say thank you…there are a lot of simple things that you can do to help spread happiness.

Giving more effort and solving difficult problems

Usually, when effort increases, reward increases. Following the easy path is less likely to be rewarding (financially or otherwise). Because if it is easy then everyone would do it. And if everyone does it, it is less likely to be valued

Think back to economics class with supply and demand…the greater the supply (or the more people who have the ability to do something and want to do it), the less the demand and the less valuable that resource/task becomes.

If you do hard things or solve difficult problems that others won’t or can’t do, you’re more likely to be rewarded.

It will only get better if you make it better

“It” can always be better. “It” can always be improved. But it won’t magically improve…it only gets better if you make it better. The world isn’t out to get you, but it’s not out there trying to make your dreams come true either. If you want your dreams to come true, you need to do something about it. Ask yourself, first, what are the most important goals in my life (short-term and long-term). Then figure out where you need to be and what you need to get done within the next 10 years, 5 years, 1 year, 90 days, 7 days, and by the end of the day. Take an action step. What do you want? How will you get there? Go out and “do.” Because without doing, you’ll be at the same place tomorrow as you were today. And then 30 years will pass in the blink of an eye and you’ll have achieved nothing of great meaning (or, at the very least, achieved very little in comparison to if you had a goal and an action plan to achieve that goal in place).