Some reflections concerning life: 1.- To know oneself

Created by:

Carlos Lasserre

Introduction

In many times, in the endless process of learning that is life, I stopped to analyze things that have worked for me, and the ones that didn’t. And when I managed to separate the two groups, I could see clearly that there are marked differences between the actions which led me to success and others that led me to fail. The concepts that I point out below are the keys that I believe, allow us to better identify the path to the goals, go through it and then demarcate for the next track.

To accomplish this I pointed out four ideas that are repeated in each of my challenges: "Know yourself", "Be protagonist", "Living consciously now" and "Give as much as possible"

The motivation to develop them is related to live a quiet and fulfilling life, with a better management of our talents available to our goals.

It is important to note that none of these concepts subsists alone, and they are all intrinsically interrelated. It is impossible to give as much as possible without knowing oneself, or live consciously now without choosing being protagonist. But the implementation of these ideas is only possible if we have the courage it takes. As I usually say, “life is like poker: No matter how much you win or lose, the important thing is how much you bet”.  And the spirit of a person can be measured by the size of his/her bets.

That is why I don’t relate the concept of success or failure to results, but to form. Negative results are often the basis for future success. The real failure is not to try, or to try it mistakenly not intending to enhance consciously.

These concepts are my best way to try.

1.- To know oneself

This story begins with a terrifying question: How can we spend 100% of our time with ourselves, or sleeping, walking, thinking, acting with ourselves and yet know so little about us?

From our younger years, we are taught the importance of knowledge, and we spent an important part of our life developing disciplined learning mechanisms. So we acquire information about events, phenomenon, dates and especially about people, many of them introduced as relevant. We study and analyze their motives, their actions and their consequences, but,  What about ourselves? Is it a task that we set aside by considering it personal, or even worse, less valuable?

It is likely that first question explains itself from the same emotion that it generates: fear. Because the process of knowing oneself is much more related to discovery than to learn. We are there, on the other side of the curtain, is just  we do not see ourselves. A revealing quotation Erica Jong considers by referring to advices: "Advice is what we ask every time we know the answer to something, but we rather not know it." What she means is that we prefer to live in uncertainty, fearing not knowing how to handle the question’s answer. That is the first major barrier to be overcome when knowing oneself: overcoming fear. But it's not fear of what is on the other side of the curtain, but rather how we will handle it when we meet. Nobody has taught us to do it, fear is a logical defense response.

Let stop at that point.

Are we aware of the opportunities we are missing because we do not know ourselves?

Many times I think we are not. And therein lies the key to the whole process, acquiring a greater fear than the fear of not knowing how to handle ourselves: the fear of wasting our life potential.

Lets review what we’re missing by not knowing ourselves:

a. Management of desires and frustrations:

If we really knew our strengths and weaknesses, if we understand which are our real limitations, necessarily we would have a better control over our frustrations. On a scale of 1 to 100, is not the same aspiring 100 without knowing where we are positioned, to aspire knowing it, for instance,  that we are positioned in 50. Or we can reduce the goal from 100 to 70 and make it more attainable, or we can prepare to cover the entire gap of 50. But whatever the case, it is impossible to raise a proper strategy to overcome without knowing the starting point. Any other attempt would be an unnecessary waste of time, energy and talent.

b.    Management of self-esteem and interpersonal relationships:

Why do we allow our self-esteem being altered by definitions that other people do to ourselves? Because the definitions and concepts of others take shape and sense in us when we have no definition. And we can perfectly live many years with a false reality of ourselves, ever built and nurtured by others. How is it possible then to develop our self-esteem, understand and love each other, if we have not an accurate idea of who we are? Following the logic above. How authentic interpersonal relationships can be built without the knowledge of ourselves?

The eternal question of How can we love others without loving us? And how can we love ourselves without knowing ourselves?

c.   To have what we need

A famous quotation goes: "Better you love what you do than doing what you want". I change it for "Better you love what you need." There is a dangerous gap between what we want and what we need, which is a clear sign of not listening. This difference usually overwhelms us and frustrates us. Logic dictates that decreases progressively with self-knowledge.

All these are just basic examples of the power of self-knowledge. A motto that I use in Engineering whenever required to solve a problem is: "80% of the solution for a problem is really understanding what the problem is." Once known, the remains is easier. This is because our learning is much more oriented to solve problems to understand their origin. Hence our solutions do not satisfy us, we are not solving the problem.

But the process of self-knowledge is dynamic, and since we are constantly changing it is important to remember that it requires a deep and fluid communication with ourselves to update us about who we are.

Two practical examples to develop this subject:

Example 1:

Prepare a list of your main strengths and weaknesses. Then ask two people who know you well to prepare the same list. Compare the lists and list the main differences, one in where you found yourself and the others didn’t and vice versa. These gaps can be an interesting starting point in the construction of self-knowledge.

 

Example 2:

Prepare a list of those things you normally spend your time during the day. Prepare another list of the things that you really like to spend your time in. Compare both lists and list the main differences, both in what you do and do not want to do, and not do and what you like to do. Analyzes these differences and the communication you have with yourself, how much you know  and listen to yourself.

Algunas reflexiones en torno a la Vida: 1.- CONOCERSE A UNO MISMO

Creado por:

Carlos Lasserre

Introducción

Muchas veces en el proceso interminable de aprendizaje que es la vida, me he detenido a analizar aquellas cosas que me han dado resultado, y las que no. Y cuando he logrado separar ambos grupos, he podido ver con claridad que existen marcadas diferencias entre las acciones que me llevaron al éxito y las que me llevaron al fracaso. Los conceptos que señalo a continuación son las claves que considero nos permiten identificar mejor el camino hacia los objetivos trazados, transitarlo y luego demarcarlo para el siguiente camino.

Para conseguirlo, he señalado cuatro ideas que se repiten en cada uno de mis desafíos: “Conocerse a uno mismo”, “Ser protagonista”, “Vivir conscientemente el ahora” y “Entregar el máximo posible”.  

La motivación para desarrollarlos está relacionada con vivir una vida tranquila y realizada, con un mejor manejo de nuestros talentos a disposición de nuestros objetivos. 

Es importante observar que ninguno de estos conceptos subsiste por sí solo, y están todos intrínsecamente relacionados entre sí. Es imposible entregar el máximo posible sin conocerse a uno mismo, ni vivir conscientemente el ahora sin escoger ser protagonista. Pero la puesta en práctica de estas ideas sólo se hace posible si tenemos el coraje suficiente que se necesita. Como suelo decir: "la vida es como el póquer, no importa cuánto ganes ni cuanto pierdas, lo importante es cuanto apuestes". Y el espíritu de una persona puede medirse por la dimensión de sus apuestas.

Es por esto que el concepto del éxito o el fracaso no lo relaciono a los resultados, sino a la forma. Resultados negativos muchas veces son la base de éxitos futuros. El verdadero fracaso es no intentarlo, o intentarlo equivocadamente a conciencia sin intención de mejorar. Estos conceptos son mi mejor forma de intentarlo.

1.- Conocerse a uno mismo

Esta historia comienza con una pregunta aterradora: ¿Cómo es posible pasar el 100% del tiempo con uno mismo, dormir, caminar, pensar, actuar con uno mismo y sin embargo conocernos tan poco?

Desde muy pequeños nos enseñan la importancia del conocimiento, y nos gastamos una parte importante de la vida desarrollando disciplinados mecanismos de aprendizaje. Así adquirimos información acerca de eventos, fenómenos, fechas y sobre todo de personas, muchas de ellas presentadas como relevantes. Estudiamos y analizamos sus motivaciones, sus acciones y sus consecuencias, pero ¿Qué pasa con nosotros mismos? ¿Es acaso una tarea que se deja de lado por considerarse personal, o peor aún, de menor valor?

Es probable que la primera pregunta se explique desde la misma emoción que la genera: el miedo. Porque el proceso de conocerse a uno mismo está mucho más relacionado con el descubrimiento que con el aprendizaje. Estamos ahí, al otro lado de la cortina, sólo que no nos vemos. Una frase reveladora la plantea Erica Jong, al referirse a los consejos: “Consejo es lo que preguntamos cada vez que sabemos la respuesta de algo, pero preferiríamos no saberlo”. Lo que quiere decir es que preferimos vivir en la incertidumbre, por miedo a no saber manejar la respuesta a la pregunta. He ahí la primera gran barrera que se debe sortear para conocerse a uno mismo: superar el miedo. Pero no es el miedo a lo que se encuentre al otro lado de la cortina, sino más bien, a cómo lo manejaremos cuando lo conozcamos. Nadie nos ha enseñado a hacerlo, el miedo es una respuesta lógica de defensa. 

Detengámonos en ese punto.

¿Somos acaso conscientes de las oportunidades que nos estamos perdiendo por no conocernos a nosotros mismos?

Muchas veces pienso que no. Y que es ahí donde radica la clave de todo el proceso, adquirir un miedo más grande que el miedo de no saber manejarnos: el miedo a desperdiciar nuestro potencial de vida.

Repasemos entonces lo que nos perdemos al no conocernos a nosotros mismos:

a. Manejo de los deseos y las frustraciones:

Si conociéramos realmente nuestras virtudes y defectos, si entendiéramos cuales son nuestras reales limitaciones, tendríamos necesariamente un mejor control sobre nuestras frustraciones. En una escala del 1 al 100, no es lo mismo ambicionar 100 sin saber dónde estamos ubicados, a desearlo sabiendo, por ejemplo, que estamos posicionados en 50. O bien podemos reducir la meta de 100 a 70 y hacerla más alcanzable, o podemos prepararnos para cubrir la brecha completa de los 50. Pero sea cual sea el caso, es imposible plantear una estrategia correcta de superación sin conocer el punto de partida. Cualquier otro intento sería un derroche innecesario de tiempo, energía y talento.

b. Manejo del autoestima y las relaciones interpersonales:

¿Por qué permitimos que se altere nuestra autoestima por definiciones que hacen otras personas de nosotros mismos? Porque las definiciones y los conceptos de los demás adquieren forma y sentido en nosotros cuando no tenemos una definición propia. Y podemos perfectamente vivir muchos años con una falsa realidad de nosotros mismos, eternamente construida y alimentada por otros. ¿Cómo es posible entonces desarrollar nuestra autoestima, comprendernos y querernos, si no tenemos una noción certera de quiénes somos? Siguiendo la lógica anterior, cuan auténticas pueden ser las relaciones interpersonales que construimos sin el propio conocimiento?

La eterna pregunta del ¿Cómo podemos amar a otros sin amarnos a nosotros? ¿Y cómo podemos amarnos a nosotros sin conocernos?

c. Tener lo que necesitamos

Una frase famosa dice: “Mejor querer lo que haces que hacer lo que quieres”. Yo la cambio por “Mejor querer lo que necesitas”. Existe una diferencia peligrosa entre lo que queremos y lo que necesitamos, lo que es un claro signo de no escucharnos. Esta diferencia normalmente nos agobia y nos frustra. La lógica indica que disminuya progresivamente con el autoconocimiento.

Todos estos son sólo ejemplos básicos del poder del autoconocimiento. Una máxima que suelo utilizar en la Ingeniería cada vez que se requiere dar solución a un problema es: “El 80% de la solución del problema radica en comprender realmente cuál es el problema”.  Una vez conocido, el resto es más fácil. Esto debido a que nuestro aprendizaje está mucho más orientado a solucionar problemas que a entender su origen. De ahí que nuestras soluciones no nos satisfagan: no estamos solucionando el problema. Pero el proceso del autoconocimiento es dinámico, ya que estamos constantemente cambiando y es importante recordar que se requiere de una profunda y fluida comunicación con nosotros mismos para actualizarnos de quienes somos.

Dos ejemplos prácticos para desarrollar este tema:

Ejemplo 1:

Prepara un listado con tus principales virtudes y defectos. Luego pídele a dos personas que te conozcan bien que preparen ese mismo listado. Compara los listados y anota las principales diferencias, tanto en lo que te encontraste tú y los demás no, como viceversa. Esas brechas pueden ser un punto de partida interesante en la construcción del autoconocimiento.

Ejemplo 2:

Prepara un listado con aquellas cosas en las que normalmente gastas tu tiempo durante el día. Prepara otro listado con las cosas en las que te gustaría realmente gastar tu tiempo. Compara ambos listados y anota las principales diferencias, tanto en lo que haces y que no deseas hacer, como en lo que no haces y te gustaría hacer. Analiza esas diferencias y la comunicación que tienes contigo mismo, cuanto te conoces y te escuchas. 

The Man of Tomorrow

Created by: 

Enrique Gillet

Enrique Palomera

Abel Toro (RIP)

The current outlook  presents us a man walking adrift, without greater awareness about the actual reasons for his apathy, depression, deep discontent and dissatisfaction, sometimes veiled by states of euphoria and contentment, that sometimes have more to do with chance than with results of conscious efforts towards the achievement of life goals drawn from the depths of being.

This man is confronted daily with the need to get up to start another day, like an automaton rather than conscious man, without noticing if that reason  for which he  will rise this new day is connected with what he believes and loves. Moreover, it is likely that this man does not have clarity about what is his belief, or what he wants.

On the other hand, this man feels alone, disconnected from himself, and even more disconnected from anything that’s outside himself. He’s alien to his true being  and everything around him. And the world in which he lives and performs, instead of  offering possibilities  of being integrated, it sets out a scenario in  which  he must be continually choosing between opposites that dispute the TRUTH, and when choosing one, there will always be another in opposition, again.

Only a vision of wholeness that includes and integrates harmoniously all aspects of human life can satisfy man's aspirations. Nothing can or should be discarded or discredited if one wants to have an universal view of life and man in the pursuit of happiness.

Then we are facing the need of awakening to a new level of consciousness, an integrative kind of consciousness. This integration of the individual man in a whole that attracts him more and more, cannot be done through ideologies that enclose and strung man in the struggle of opposites, but through life itself and the expansion of consciousness.

The man, who has had to withstand the enormous pressures of a historical cycle of dominance of communities, each of which, somehow and in some way, have offered salvation, must fall back on himself, back on his own center, shift his  energies on the innermost core of his being, in search of his expansion, in search of his real evolution, the evolution that will lead to real freedom and  happiness, the evolution of consciousness.

Here’s the great challenge for The Man of Tomorrow

The new era will develop under a new sign, based on the principle of integrating all parts into a whole or unit. The new man must wake up to a new expansive and participant consciousness, connected with himself and the universe from which he is part and therefore he needs to understand it in order  to understand himself. An expansive consciousness that allows him to extract and take advantage of everything with discarding nothing, getting rid of the shackles of opposites, understanding them in this new plane as complements of each other.

We are at the service of our personal evolution, and consequently, slow but effective, at the service of the mankind’s evolution. And this evolution corresponds to a conscious process, which commit the willingness to transform, and is based on an expansive and participant consciousness. Expansive, because it is projected to rise upward, connecting with that superior man who dwells within us, and participant, assuming himself as an integral and inseparable part of the rest of the universe, at the same time assumed as an universe in himself, and therefore also indivisible.

Definitively, this is the evolutionary step we propose to ourselves, and when aiming our steps depending on the evolution of the very being, connecting with universal and other's sensitivity, understanding them as brothers, we are addressing our responsibility as conscious individuals to be the agents of change that will influence the achievement of those ideals that aspire to the emergence of a man, conscious as well of the responsibility that fits in the pursuit of our own destiny, happiness and so on. A man that instead of subtract and divide, adds and multiplies.

So, the next man, who rises tomorrow, will know why and for what he rose. And his reasons for doing so will be deeply connected to his dreams, love, happiness, and the dream of love and happiness of his brothers, that is, all other men.

And he will be happy because his sensibility is in harmony with the world’s sensitivity and the entire universe, in which he is part and at the same time is himself. He will be happy, because he will witness the gift of having awakened one more day, a full day to love, to live it in intensity, as if it was his last day, but with the strength and wonder of the first own, feeling that life is made of moments and each one of them is a lifetime.

The man who rises tomorrow, will value each day as a new opportunity to be, to try again, to vibrate at the same frequency that universe vibrates. He will feel to be loved by the world and will love the world as he loves himself. He will feel his commitment in achieving Universal Ideal, will rise to his feet, aim  his march towards the East and will do it for love. Love to himself, love for all existence, love for life itself.