You Learn by Living

That’s from the first chapter on “Learning to Learn.”

Eleanor tells us that “Nothing alive can stand still, it goes forward or back. Life is interesting only as long as it is a process of growth; or, to put it another way, we can grow only as long as we are interested.”

If we want to make our life a daring adventure in which we learn by living, we *must* keep our curiosity alive.

As the father of a 3 1/2-year-old whose favorite question is “Why?” I particularly connect with this Idea and I’m even more inspired than ever to continue to show up and patiently, enthusiastically support Emerson in uncovering the answers to (all!) his why?’s! :)

Let’s remember that curiosity is a key to growing which is a key to flourishing.

What’s firing you up these days?

How can you cultivate that passion to grow—both in yourself and those around you?!

That’s from chapter #2: “Fear—the Great Enemy.”

Eleanor tells us that as a child and young woman she was incredibly timid and shy. She systematically worked on conquering her fear and talks about the self-discipline required to do so.

She’s quite clear that we must (!) face our fear every.single.time.

The result?

We “gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”

As I was reading this chapter, I was reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson who told us the same thing: “Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do.”

And, as we know, The Tools guys are so clear on the power of leaning into our fear that they tell us we need to “reverse our desire”—moving from wanting to avoid painful things at all costs to KNOWING that all growth exists on the other side of our comfort zone; therefore, we should say, “BRING IT ON!” to ourselves each and every (!) time we feel the fear.

I’m also reminded of Jim Rohn’s wisdom from a recent Note on Leading an Inspired Life. He tells us: “Instead of worrying, concentrate on doing the best job you’ve ever done in your life.”

Let’s do a quick check in on you and your fear.

What’s one fear that you’ve overcome? Can you see how it’s made you stronger? Feel the power you have now that you didn’t have before.

And, any fears currently bubbling up? Can you step back, see it, and recognize the opportunity to get stronger as you really stop to look it in its face?

We must do the things we think we cannot do. Over and over and over again—aggregating and compounding all the power earned each step of the way!

P.S. Eleanor’s hubbie FDR had some wise words on fear as well. He reminded us that “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

Want to conquer timidity/shyness/social anxiety?

Take the spotlight off of you and put it onto the people with whom you’re interacting.

→ “If you will forget about yourself, whether or not you are making a good impression on people, what they think of you, and you will think about them instead, you won’t be shy.”

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. And remember that “it’s your attention to yourself that is so stultifying.”

Disregard yourself and just pour yourself into what you’re doing!

William Damon and Anne Colby put it this way in The Power of Ideals: “This is a central thread of world wisdom throughout the ages. Fulfillment and peace of mind come not from trying to create the most attractive possible self but from taking the focus off the self: not thinking less of oneself, but thinking of oneself less.”

← Let’s do that.

Those are the first words from a chapter on “Learning to Be Useful.”

Nietzsche comes to mind. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra he tells us: “This is the manner of noble souls: they do not want to have anything for nothing; least of all, life. Whoever is of the mob wants to live for nothing; we others, however, to whom life gave itself, we always think about what we might best give in return… One should not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy.”

Then there’s Viktor Frankl’s wisdom which I have shared more than any other in these Notes: “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

Happiness is not a goal in and of itself. It is a BY-PRODUCT of our commitment to something bigger than ourselves.

Our goal?

Our goal is to be useful—to discover and give our gifts to the world.

Here’s how David Brooks puts it in The Road to Character: “In this method, you don’t ask, What do I want from life? You ask a different set of questions: What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do?

In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life. The important answers are not found inside, they are found outside. This perspective begins not within the autonomous self, but with the concrete circumstances in which you happen to be embedded. This perspective begins with an awareness that the world existed long before you and will last long after you, and that in the brief span of your life you have been thrown by fate, by history, by chance, by evolution, or by God into a specific place with specific problems and needs. Your job is to figure certain things out: What does this environment need in order to be made whole? What is it that needs repair? What tasks are lying around waiting to be performed? As the novelist Frederick Buechner put it, ‘At what points do my talents and deep gladness meet the world’s deep need?’”

Here’s to being uber-useful! :)

There ya go. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Top 4 Big Ideas on how to make the most of our precious time.

Let’s do a quick review.

1. Inner calm. We need to be able to shut off the noise of what’s going on outside us (literally and figuratively) AND turn off the noise inside our own heads.
2. Concentrate on one thing. We need to “learn to concentrate, to give all your attention to the thing at hand, and then to be able to put it aside and go on to the next thing without confusion.”
3. Routines. We’ve gotta build our systems. “I find that my life is much more satisfactory when it forms a kind of pattern, though I do not believe in too rigid a pattern.”
4. Energy! We’ve gotta have the ENERGY to use our time wisely. “I learned, as a small child, to follow a common-sense regime in living and to feel responsible for keeping myself in good health.”

How are you doing with each of those?

What’s awesome? What needs work? What will you do to optimize?

P.S. Eleanor also tells us: “Of course, all this presupposes that you not only want to know how to use your time but that you have some use for it. I think almost anyone would agree that unless time is good for something it is good for nothing.

The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time. But if you have more projects than you have time for, you are not going to be an unhappy person.”

I’m prepping for Conquering Perfectionism 101 as I write this Note.

One of the key themes will be the fact that we need to simultaneously hold our super high standards (going for perfection) while embracing the constraints of reality (knowing we’ll never actually reach perfection).

Tal Ben-Shahar captures this brilliantly and echoes Eleanor’s wisdom in The Pursuit of Perfect. He tells us: “… psychologists today differentiate between positive perfectionism, which is adaptive and healthy, and negative perfectionism, which is maladaptive and neurotic. I regard these two types of perfectionism as so dramatically different in both their underlying nature and their ramifications that I prefer to use entirely different terms to refer to them. I will refer to negative perfectionism simply as perfectionism and to positive perfectionism as optimalism.”

We have negative perfectionism and then positive perfectionism. The perfectionist vs. the optimalist. (Which are you? :)

John Wooden echoes this wisdom as well: “Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts.”

His path to that perfection? Try to do your best to make TODAY a masterpiece.

→ “When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.”

Here’s to S…T…R…E…T…C…H…I…N…G… ourselves toward our ideals!!!

P.S. Remember: Our ideals are guiding stars, not distant shores.

The dominant theme of the book is Eleanor’s optimistic spirit and desire to experience life “to the hilt”—sucking the marrow out of life as Henry David Thoreau would put it.

How awesome would it be if every child (and adult!) “could be so imbued with a sense of the adventure of life that each change, each readjustment, each surprise—good or bad—that came along would be welcomed as a part of the whole enthralling experience.”

We can’t experience life that way unless we see E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. that happens as part of one big awesome adventure.

I’m smiling as I type thinking of “Bring it on!” + Jocko Willink’s response to everything (= “Good!”) and Byron Katie’s wisdom that it’s all about Loving What Is.