Personal Growth

Recently, I have done a little bit of self-reflection of the current stage of my life. It is by no mean thorough or serious, but I do have a feeling about personal growth that I wanna blog here.

Personal growth that I mean here is more about growth/enhancement/improvement of my mind/spirit/intelligence. With such growth, naturally, I should feel better today than yesterday. I should perform better today than yesterday. As a result, things will turn out better which may lead to financial gain or spiritual satisfaction.

Usually, the mean to achieve such growth is through learning, supported by appropriate amount of exercise, healthy diet, sleep and entertainment. Also, a stable environment would help as well, namely, a steady income, decent health, and okay relationship with people who have first person contact frequently including family members, co-workers, peers, etc.

The learning that I mean here is basically picking up new knowledge, skills, and thoughts that can be applicable in real life. That can be obtained by taking courses, reading self-help books, etc. The point is that it must be something specific.

I feel like I’ve not grown much in recent times. I think it has a lot to do for being a responsible family man. I’m NOT here to blame on my wife and my kid. I enjoy very much for being a married man and a dad. The joy and satisfaction that they have been giving me is just irreplaceable. However, every take comes with give. I’m not trying to get maximum of everything which is impossible. Instead, I think I need to figure out a way to ‘optimize’ my resource to get a more satisfactory balance of both. Having said this much so far, you can tell that I’m not happy with my personal growth side so far.

The resource that I’m talking about here is not too much about money, not that I’ve lots of it. Rather, it is about time management. I did blog about Time repeatedly before. I’ve never tired of this topic. Cuz, as older we are, at least I am, the more acute sense of time that I have. Perhaps, it has something to do with the fact that we have a longer history that we can do self-reflection on. When we are 20 years old, what we saw at the time comparing to what we had been at 18, not that big of a difference would be noticed. Also, a 20 years old would see a lot of unknown in his life down the long road in future. There was just so much to look forward to. We had time to ‘kill’. We were enjoying our youth. For an older person, got married and became a dad. Things are looked to be more stable. Roles and responsibilities are more defined. Basically, you can pessimistically say that we are ‘stuck’ to be this and that. Regardless, simply referencing our parents, we can pretty much tell what our life should be going forward.

It is by no mean pessimistic or easy. Once we are married, we can tell our life path will deviate from those spirit-free bachelors. Once we became parent, our life path will further deviate from those leissez-fare couples without kid. We made life-decisions and just live with the consequences of them. The joy and pain of bachelors and childless couples have nothing to do with us. Personally, I would not miss the joy and feel fortune of not having the pain of those people. Cuz, I made my choices. The issue here is that how to deal with the joy and pain of being married and a parent. The joyful part is easy, just takes it as it comes, I think it is no brainer. The hard part is to manage the pain. I know the ‘half-glass’ full theory, it is an easy but quick pain reliever. That actually is too passive to fool myself for long term. What I need is something more concrete and tangible. I’m not looking for a timetable, but at least a strategy of time-management that could re-trigger my personal growth. I think that I have reached a point that I’m kinda desperate to have one.

I don’t believe that I’ve to shortchange the joy that I gain from being a husband and a dad. For now, I just think that I need to manage my overall time more ‘efficiently’. I guess I just need to reshuffle my priorities and set up tangible and reachable goals. I’m not too worry about motivation part, cuz I know myself enough that if I’ve a better plan and got excited enough of the goals, my motivation engine will auto-start itself. I guess, I just need to squeeze an hour or so to be by myself undisturbed, to think, to scrabble on my iPhone, and think again….let’s see what I can come up with….man just thinking and blogging it simultaneously really help!