Motivation

You Are In Charge Of Your Development

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As an adult you might expect those around you to recognize and appreciate your talents, to provide you with ample space and opportunity to succeed, to want to help you along in your development without any strings attached, just because you’re so great and so deserving. This is the definition of primary narcissism when you think about it, a geocentric model of the universe where you’re at the center and everyone else is orbiting around you.

The fact is that there are precious few people out there helping others for purely altruistic reasons, they help because it’s reinforcing for them to help. And not to paint too grim a picture of the world, but in our competitive individualistic society most people aren’t trying to help you progress, they’re trying to figure out how to get you to help them progress.

The point is that you and only you are in charge of your development and to hope or expect otherwise is to regress to the fantasy world of childhood, a world where many people hopefully were taking an active interest in your development, people like your parents, teachers, coaches, and others instructors. But like we said they did so because it was reinforcing for them to do so, not because you were or are the center of the universe. (We could argue that many parents are the one exception, whose children remain the center of their universes forever. Whether or not it’s a healthy attitude is a topic for another time.)

This is a motivational article and while the content so far might sound negative the reason for writing it is to serve as a stark reminder that every day you sit around waiting for others to decide to help you along with your projects and endeavors is a wasted day. Actually the day where someone suddenly decides to take an active interest in your development very well might never come, even if you did grow accustomed to the experience in childhood. If you’re lucky enough to have a cheering section right now that’s awesome, use it for that positive reinforcement and be grateful, but it’s likely your cheering section will arrive while you’re accomplishing what you set out to do or even more likely after you do it, not before. You are in charge of your development, and this is exactly the way you should want it because it means you don’t have to wait around for anyone to tell you it’s okay to go for it, you can follow the path that is right for you and you can take that first step immediately.