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Today's
Meditation:
Growing
is so important to us--if we don't grow, we stay the same,
and we're never able to come close to our potential.
We're also never able to give all that we might be able to
give if we were to grow into a new and different person from
time to time.
I
see my life as a series of chapters, and my hope is that in
each chapter I'm a stronger, more caring and compassionate
person than I was in the previous one. The only way
that I can accomplish this is to take risks, to try new
things, to make an effort to add to who I am as a person.
As
a basketball coach, I often have a hard time convincing
players that they never will get better if they don't
stretch their limits. Most of them like to play at the
level they're at, because that's the level at which they
think they'll make fewest mistakes. That may be true,
but their playing never improves, and their teammates never
benefit from their new abilities or improved
performance. Sports are great because they give us a
constant opportunity to grow and improve, yet most people
who are involved in sports hit a certain level and then
never dare to try to move to the next--that's why there are
so few pros, relatively speaking, and many, many amateurs.
While
there's nothing really wrong with being an amateur--not all
people want to devote the time and energy necessary to be a
professional athlete--Ronald's point of never growing past
your current level of ability is very important, for if I
back away from something because it may be difficult, I'm
losing a great opportunity to develop an important part of
myself. Perhaps the difficulty will be in dealing with
people, and I'll develop my social skills, or the difficulty
will lie in the mathematics or research involved with a
project; in that case, I'll learn a lot about mathematics or
research.
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