People have strange relationships with time. Generally, we perceive time as something we either don’t have enough of or have too much of. How often do you have a day when what you do lines up exactly with the time you have? Even those skilled in time management may be able to align their available time with a specific set of activities, but they may still have a long to-do list that never makes it into the daily schedule. For many people, the workweek is a race against available time. But in certain circumstances, or at a certain age, the balance may shift the other way. You may feel the hours stretching out in front of you with no meaningful way to fill them. Is it possible to influence your perception of time passing?
Do you believe in the inherent goodness of human nature? If your only contact with people were face-to-face in calm, nonstressful situations, you might conclude that people are generally friendly, polite, and generous. But when certain social dynamics enter the picture, you might come to a very different conclusion. Under particular circumstances, people can seem to lose their empathy, emotional intelligence, and ability to regulate themselves. They lash out. They become harsh, insulting, or even cruel. Why does this happen? How does a person who is normally kind and polite suddenly act like a bully?
When is a setback not a disaster? Those of us who have been fortunate enough to build good lives often begin to view certain elements of those lives as essential to our happiness. If we lose one of them, even temporarily, we may feel as though everything has fallen apart. We may believe we have to start over, when all we really need is a course correction. But if we move through life expecting setbacks and prepare for them as much as possible, our disappointment may be softened. We may even discover opportunities we would not have found otherwise. Disappointments will still come, but they may seem less overwhelming when we place them within the larger context of our lives.
Do what you love, and you’ll lead a happy life, right? Well, it’s not always that simple. No one does only what makes them happy. There will always be parts of life we would rather avoid: certain duties at work, housework, commuting, social obligations, and even activities we may feel uneasy about doing. Responsibilities are part of life. But if we look more closely at the things we do because we feel we “have to,” we may discover that some are not as burdensome as we assumed, while others may not truly be required of us at all.
Personal growth can happen in many ways, but it is difficult to attain in isolation. Growth often occurs when we challenge ourselves, remain open to other people’s ideas and values, and explore the edges of our own comfort zones. All of these paths have an internal component, but they also involve engagement with others. To benefit fully from these experiences, you must be intentional about both the inner work and the connections that help shape it.
