Every day I look at my calendar to see what meetings I have and begin to psych myself up for them. I look at the people that are going to those meetings and what I need to accomplish. I think about what kind of people I will be meeting. It’s not that I don’t like people—I do—it’s just that when I interact with people it takes significant energy, and I have to bring that energy to the surface. It’s like warming up a diesel engine.
Yes, that’s right, I’m an introvert.
I’ve always been interested in experiences that make people explore and face their ultimate limits.
It might just be curiosity, but it might be something deeper. The opportunity to explore our ultimate limits might tell us something about ourselves that we would not have known otherwise. It gets to the core of who we are on a physical, mental, and emotional level.
An intimate knowledge of our responses to more extreme hardships and challenges would help us understand our responses to all of our challenges. It would certainly give us a boost in confidence as we face our everyday challenges.
How well do you know yourself?
How much do you like yourself?
These two questions are inexorably intertwined. The more we know ourselves, the more likely we will be to become people we would naturally like and admire.
But getting to know ourselves takes effort.
We need to spend time with ourselves – alone and with others. We can know ourselves better through spending time with other people, as long as we stay aware of our thoughts, our reactions, and our emotions.
It’s very trendy these days to be busy.
People in the modern workplace wear busyness as a badge of honor. In any elevator in any office building in the country, you can hear people talking about how full their plates are, about working nights and weekends, about being “swamped” or “under water,” about working 60-plus-hour weeks.
But think about busyness from a rational perspective.
Does being busy mean the same thing as working hard?
Does busyness automatically translate to effectiveness?
Does busyness ensure your goals will be achieved or your dreams will be realized?