Growing Up

 Ah. Growing up. The process a child undergoes to become an adult. Part of growing up is accepting more freedom in one’s life, and making decisions. Also part of growing up is taking on more responsibility, enough to challenge oneself and convince oneself that they are working (i.e. acting upon their ambition and willing to endure struggle) towards such a goal, and that they are noble in their pursuits. Those who do not accept enough struggle in their life would not have developed a sense of strength comparable to those who do.

At the same time, the goals one sets for oneself and ambitions one takes on need to be set in accordance with who one is. Understanding one’s habits, one’s current skill level, one’s potential, one’s motivation, and one’s history are all relevant factors. One cannot aim to train for a marathon within a month if they haven’t run their entire life. For a seasoned, retired runner, however, the story is different.

Another question to ask oneself is: what will working towards this goal demand of me. Some tasks are naturally demanding, such as attempting to achieve a master title in chess. Such a title requires endurance, patience, and a resilient attitude towards the game. It is not satisfactory to set a goal, without first having evaluated it thoroughly, and making not a vague, poorly constructed plan, but after the first draft, taking the care to review it thoroughly.

Different people have different habits. To someone who is heavily addicted to alcohol, the number of impediments to any particulary goal in that individual’s life would be much greater than to that individual who has had a history of self-discipline, and conscientiousness. But to each their own. Different people have different struggles (and I’m not saying by the way, that each person’s struggles have nothing to do with the extent that they can negotiate with themselves). Someone who indulges repeatedly in a bad habit, without taking the time to consult their consciousness, and to probe within themselves to find the culprit responsible for their self-deterioration.

And so, the process of self-discipline is inherent to goal-setting and goal-following. In my opinion, having thought of the sum total of all the goals I have worked towards, such as working on a group project with friends, and working on my YouTube channels, my achievements have started from goals that I set for myself. Exciting goals. Goals for which I am happy to sacrifice certain aspects of my life--such as time spent playing outside with friends. Though, I feel it would not be wise to sacrifice complete pleasures out of one’s life; for a long-term goal, repeated cycles of boom and bust are inevitable, but the driving force must stem from the inherent push within oneself--the acknowledgement and awe at the beauty of the vision one is working towards. If a builder is building a house, they must dream up the beauty of the house they are building, and to revel in all of the intricacies they would enjoy making and watching.

For any general task, especially for those less exquisite than house-building, one must convince oneself why one gets up in the morning to do what they do.

My rule for deciding such is that if one is unable to see the ultimate value of what they are doing--if they cannot even attribute a sense of nobility or romantic duty to the action which they engage in, the action is simply not partaking in; one should find uses for one’s time that are more fulfilling to their long-term vision of their future self.