Human Sculptors

If I've never used the phrase 'learn from your mistakes' in at least one of my blog posts in the past then I'll be shocked. I feel that the sentiment behind saying such a thing can also be applied to good things in your life: 'learn from your successes' so to speak. It is through the things that we do, and the things we don't do for that matter, that we become who we are. If we were all to sit indoors all day not doing anything or testing ourselves against anyone then we would remain the same until the day we decide to get up and move. It is through physical and mental acts that we create who we are and, as the title of this post suggests, sculpt ourselves in the way that we want.

It would be more than stupid of me to start harping on about my recent exam diet for the simple reason that I just don't know how I did. What I can take from them is the fact that I've done them and that my experience of sitting exams has been further enhanced for this reason. This is the type of thing that I'm talking about when I talk about 'sculpting' ourselves. I could choose to look at that exam period in two different ways: 1) I could look back on them and think that I didn't do enough and sit around regretting how I conducted myself or 2) that I did my best and that the way that I prepared for my exams was adequate. Of course I don't know which of those is true, but the way that I choose to look at how things went will ultimately have a big effect on me, regardless of the result. I now have the choice as to how much (or little) they have an affect on me and this applies to just about everything that happens in our lives - well everything in fact. Think of the worst thing that could happen to you and try and tell me that you don't have a choice of how to react to it. When someone says that they didn't have a choice then they can't be telling the truth because there is always a choice to make. Those people that say that there was no other way probably just chose the wrong way. 

For example, sticking to the exam theme, stress is one of the hardest things to deal with as a student. The natural reaction to stress is to clam up and avoid doing anything about it. This, however, is not the only way to deal with stress because there is the other (harder) way which is to tackle it head on. We can decide how we, as people, react to such things and it is through such decisions that we make our own personalities - the very thing that makes us unique from the person sitting next to us. Over the last couple of years I've certainly become more frustrated with other people just because of they way that they react to bad things in their lives. The way that I choose to deal with this frustration however, is to use it to try and make myself better - you should learn from your own mistakes but you should also take heed from those of others. 

I suppose that in a way I'm blessed with being boring. Sometimes I wish I was more of a 'doer' than a 'thinker' but for the majority of the time I suit myself just fine. For me, life is always about making yourself better - not better than anyone else, just better than you are already. Very much consciously I've chosen to take the positives from everything that happens to me personally and around me (no matter how bad they are) and for this I feel a lot more in control than ever before. To carry on the metaphor of this post, I am trying to become a master sculptor by constantly adding and taking things out of my life in an attempt to make me better. I think that the general tone of most of my posts is that we choose how happy or sad we are and we choose how good or 'bad' our lives are. Those people that end up in a mess either don't want to get out of it or just didn't care enough in the first place to avoid it.

Thanks for reading folks. Three posts in a week - who'd have thought it?

Martin