How does one effect a positive change in one's own life? Over the past year or so I've been making a lot of startling discoveries about myself. I've also discovered that while I'm ultimately happy about who and where I am, that I posses a few traits which are underdeveloped at best and distasteful at worst. I tend to be extremely passionate, but only for a short time span on any one subject. Akin to that, I have an extremely broad knowledge base, but it trends towards, what I would consider, a shallow grasp of the subject matter. This is something I'd like to change. So, we come back to my original question, "How does one effect positive change in one's own life?"
My ideal would be to find the one thing that I can not only be passionate about, but something that will continue to hold my interest and passion for more than two to six months. But how do I do that? Or is it possible that I've already found it and just didn't realize or notice it at the time because I was distracted by another passion and never really followed through? I think that my plans for the future will allow me to focus on a particular subject for my passion, but how do I know this isn't just another one of my fads?
When you boil it all down, I think it basically comes down to one thing. I'm afraid. And when I realized that, I looked back and noticed a pattern. Most of my major decisions in life have been decided by my fear. And in almost all the cases I took the "safe" path, or the path of least resistance and have, while not being especially regretful of those decisions, also have made nothing to be proud of either. The few times I've made decisions based on something other than fear are the decisions that have made me either proud or regretful.
Everybody has always been telling me that I have such great potential. How I hated that phrase when I was growing up. Great, I've got potential, but potential for what exactly? The stock answer there was always "Whatever you want" followed by a gushing smile and a wish that they could have the same opportunities. The fallacy here is that potential is neutral. So yes, I have the potential to become an amazing doctor, or the one who discovers a unified field theory, but I also have the potential to become the a notorious serial killer, or an excellent corporate lawyer. So how do I figure out what it is that I really want to do when I excell at everything I attempt?
Sure, potential is a good thing to have, but I've never really used much of it, instead dealing it out in dribs and drabs and acheiving a sort of quiet medicrity with my life. While I've made progress, it has been slow, and to be honest, disappointing. I suppose it's sort of like the stock market, and so far my life has been an ultra conservative portfolio, minimal risk, but if I keep it up, then there's no way I'll be able to live off of it after I retire.
So how do I effect that change? Which direction should I pick? How do I know that it's the right one? Why is it that none of the important questions are ever easy?
