Bad habits rob your future self. Good habits enrich your future self. You are not just one person, you are a community of people across time; you now, you tomorrow, and the array potential people you may become, across time, into the future.
How many of the frustrations you experience on a daily basis are the result of the past you not taking the current you into consideration? Who could you possibly be and what could you possibly do in the future if only “you now” would work toward that end? These are questions presenting themselves clearly and strongly in my mind tonight. The answers to these questions are the vision. The vision that is required if you to make proper use of the gifts you have..
If you have no idea where you are going, and no idea of what target you are aiming for, then the likelihood of getting there and/or hitting a worthy target is pretty much zero. Maybe your vision of a future you is simply being someone who breaks out of some bad habits, and builds capacity to create and establish a few new good habits. Nothing wrong with this approach. At least it gets you out of the starting gate. Perhaps it is all you can manage at the moment. Sometimes you have to go slow now in order to go fast later.
Regardless, if you commit, at some point the reality will hit home that the 365 Commitment really does work, and really does change you. Meaning, as you practice the commitment you will arrive at a date in the future and notice without question that you are becoming the future person you previously envisioned at some point in the past. Maybe it’s a small thing. But without doubt, you participated in the creation of the new reality you have now arrived in. This is a revelation! This is powerful!
This fact raises the question – what do you want? Because, now you are realize you can get it. Now you have big responsibility on your hands. It’s always been there (the responsibility), but perhaps you failed to see it or acknowledge it. I think I am trying to articulate the experiential process that brings a person to the realization that they are responsible for everything that happens in their lives. No more blaming others, or blaming circumstances. At some point in adulthood, the mantle of responsibility for where we are, who we are, and what happens to us, squarely and completely rests on our own shoulders. Own it. It’s a powerful realization, because it gives the power, and some pain. Now we can trace back our prior decisions and habits and understand how we became what we are in this moment, how we are in fact responsible for it, for better or worse. In this moment of realization we may feel some regret or remorse because we see clearly that we are to blame. Perhaps we squandered opportunity. Perhaps we were caught up in blaming others.
But what about fate or accidents you ask? Or bad luck, or bad people, or bad circumstance? Doesn’t matter. The best way forward it to take responsibility for everything in your life. Especially the responsibility of figuring out who you should become in the future and then identifying the habits of mind and body to get you there. Perhaps you want to be someone who experiences more meaning in life. Fair enough, then take on a big load, and more responsibility, and seek to provide value to others, and you will likely find the meaning you seek. Your being will respond to the new demands by accessing and unlocking the potential that is within you. Genes will express and parts of your mind will turn on. It’s what living things do.
The 365 Commitment is a great tool. Practice it and you will see clearly that your will and your habits manifest the future you are going to experience. The question is who do you want to become, and what should you be doing to get there?
Ben Wagner (61)
Member 365 Commitment
