Chaotic surprise. The sudden realisation that what you assumed to know is not “known” to you in the sense that you had believed. It comes with a sense of “feeling lost” coupled with the anxiety of solving for the unknown. We encounter these scenarios more often than we think in the day-to-day rigours of life.
agency
Persons are cultivated in families. Families give us the values that help us orient ourselves in a way that allows us to participate in life. This gives parents a huge responsibility. As a parent, you are essentially shaping the initial perspective of the persons you parent. In essence, you cultivate the first version of this person. For this reason, it’s important to account for this attribute when interacting with someone.
For us humans, life is a complex domain in which we are born and then have to learn how to operate while doing it. We learn to live life while living life. All the major aspects of life have this wide range of complexity that cannot be narrowed down to a fixed proposition. So, how do we cope? In a conversation with Samantha Willman, we explored the role of family in this odyssey and the different ways it influences our relational capacity in the long run.
Every now and then, we find ourselves face-to-face with versions of ourselves that we do not like. There’s some sense of inadequacy that is not clearly articulated to us when it manifests. In a conversation I had with Oana, we explored how we find ourselves in such a scenario and some of the strategies that have helped us work through them and get to a more harmonised state.
Have you ever felt trapped in your own life, unable to live on your own terms, yet having to follow guidelines prescribed to you? As we mature, we reach a place where we recognise that we have a particular nature of expression unique to ourselves. It’s like a resonance with the spirit of who we are, emerging from a sense of failure to fit anywhere. No matter what experiences we accumulate or skills we learn, we inevitably find that we have our own way of doing things—our signature style that marks everything we touch.
Have you ever felt helpless, like a passenger in the driver’s seat of your own reactions, knowing the right course yet unable to steer away from the impending doom of your habitual responses? These blind spots, areas where our impulsive responses betray our deeper intentions, challenge even the most self-aware among us. Historically, the quest to master these impulses has been pursued by philosophers and spiritual leaders, offering deep wisdom that often seemed out of reach for those without the privilege of extensive study or reflection. Dr. Iris Stammberger’s Wisdom Project seeks to bridge these gaps, offering every individual the tools to reclaim control over their reactions and reshape their lives. In a recent conversation, we explored the essence of the Wisdom Project and how it democratises wisdom.
The journey starts with a deep dive into our interiorities, exploring how our inner selves respond to the external environment. Sometimes we get caught up in the social moral codes and norms dictated by society that we have to live by and forget to process the emotional signals from within. These signals, however, are not mere noise; they contain crucial data that, when processed, guide us towards rebalancing our lives. They offer cues that we have to process into actionable information. Processing these signals can reveal to us what to pursue and what not to pursue.
The journey starts with identifying those unique gifts through noticing and taking seriously one’s preferences for excellence. Many a time, we undermine our individual preferences with respect to fitting in and social belonging. However, this comes at the cost of suppressing our innate desires, which sometimes can be the spark of the gifts within us that are there to express our excellence. When we respond to that spark and take it seriously, it often comes with a clear vision of a potential reality that could manifest.
In life, we all have a taste for excellence and mastery. It’s as though the most true things are embodied through practicing excellence and mastery. However, the journey to the place where one has elegantly embodied excellence and mastery is challenging. In a recent conversation I had with Stephen Musoke Senkomago (a.k.a SMS), we explored this theme and learned a few things.
It all starts out with an “allowance” of our selves. We have to allow our selves to be. What this means is that we have to acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses because they define the limits we have to surpass and the tools we can use to do so. In a sense, this can be our current brand, who we currently are. It’s important to know this because then the difference between who we currently are and who we intend to become starts to show. For example, currently, I’m a person who loves writing down my thoughts in blog posts, and I’m working towards becoming the person who talks through these thoughts with others in dialogue to unpack them and learn from others. There’s a clear difference between who I am and who I want to become.