Galery

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Gali

The question of self-improvement inevitably comes up when it comes to human fate and how much is destined. Why should people strive to self-improvement, if the main course of their lives is predetermined and can not be changed? The answer to this question is very short: there is no one who does not develop and improve in his or her live. It is not enough just to live. Self-improvement is the very existence of people, whatever a person experiences in his or her personal, individual way of development and self-improvement. Nobody and nothing is developing for its own sake, at random. But as always, the simplest things are the most complex.

In this article I will tell you why the self-improvement of a person is closely connected with his or her individual fate and can not be separated from it, the fate which can not be changed physically.

What is self-improvement or personal development? Wherever we turn today someone offers us to self-improve, to develop ourselves. Courses, techniques, seminars, books - ranging from yoga, meditation, reiki, hypnosis, autosuggestion, laughter therapy, positive thinking, 100 breath takings and etc. I'm not even sure I have heard about all possible methods of development that are available.

Clive Lewis - the Irish writer and literary critic, author of a series of adventure books for children Narnia - said: "You have no soul. YOU are a soul." If you think, most people would tell they have souls, which means that they identify themselves with their bodies. The soul is what we call personality, character. But we identify ourselves with the body.

I am sorry... but what are you improving exactly? The perception of self-improvement is distorted to some extent and so is the perception of human destiny. This distortion is a consequence of human desire to control everything in life. Well, there is no way to do it. We have seen exactly that in recent days - Japan. A natural phenomenon that has led to almost uncontrollable processes. No, I don’t mean that the world should not be developed industrially. Actually, this is part of the inevitable development. Then, a change in the way nuclear fuel is used will surely follow. And this is called improvement.

I will turn to the issue of destiny in brief. Destiny is our life time, the experiences that we have been given to live through in the physical world. We have bodies that develop in a specific way after the birth. And none of us can change the development stages of our own bodies. Just like our physical destiny that we can not change when and as we like. There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly human destiny is - it is manifested in what happens to us and around us in our lives, in the form of events and experiences. People, however, are completely free to perceive, with their minds and souls, what is happening in the most diverse ways. And this exactly is the individual’s development and improvement.

We experience the external events through our bodies, but understand and realize them through our minds and souls. Development takes place in our minds and souls. We can not experience anything, we can not go anywhere, we can not hear or see anything, we can not talk, and we do not have any receptors without our bodies. We live and perceive only through the body. But the development is in our minds, in our souls.

Being philosophers is easy. Thinking intellectually on some issue is not difficult. Here, let’s take a book on self-improvement or a seminar on "How to be successful." You understand all of it. But this can not change you - understanding is not a change, self-improvement, it is not development. Theory loses its meaning if there is no experience at the core. Someone tells you that to pour boiling water on yourself is painful and can cause burns. But how does this man know it, if he or she has not experienced it? Yes, this man can explain to you for hours what happens when you pour boiling water on yourself. But you will never understand it so that it can change and improve you until you experience it yourself. And experiences are our life, with all its "chances," this is our way called destiny.  

Self-improvement begins with self-awareness. What do we actually improve in ourselves without being aware of ourselves, our own personality or someone else’s? Someone has told you that you will become a happy person by using this or that technique. And how does this man know what will make you happy? Do you actually know yourself? Striving to become like someone else is not self-improvement. If someone has come to happiness while fishing, this is his way to be happy. But if this is your way to be happy – you must personally check it by going fishing.

Personal development needs an individual, a personality. If people are not placed under the conditions which will make then show their internal capabilities, personality, they can not know themselves. People think they are brave, but they bear great fear inside. And only when faced with a challenge can people show this fear and understand that they fear of something.

The question “What is the point of self-improvement when people can not go beyond their destiny?” is actually meaningless. There is no desire for self-improvement behind it. There is the human desire to control and change what the person can or can not. Do you understand what a Catch 22 is that? People can not understand what they can or can not, until they live through it. And when people live through it they are no longer able to change it. We must live through love to know it. And after we have lived through it we will never be the same. We will not remain the same, we will change, evolve. The child goes and touches the hot stove. Then the child already knows - that hurts. This is the way people develop and improve, through experience.