Now That You're Perfect, What Comes Next?

We all set goals to achieve self-improvement. OK! We've reached our goals and we're perfect! What comes next? 🤔🤔

An old man once asked a young man what was he going to do with his life? The young man gave an immediate answer for what he intended to accomplish in his life. Each time he would give an answer, the old man’s response would be … “Well fine! What then?”

The young man pretty much had an answer for everything he was going to achieve for his entire life but he finally answered the old man and “Well I guess after that I’ll just die.” The old man’s response was … “Well fine! What then?”

There is probably supposed to be some sort of spiritual lesson about the afterlife based on this conversation. But for this article, I’m not going to try to venture out that far. The story led me in a different direction. I’m just wondering, with those all of these blogs, articles, books and lectures by motivational speakers about self-improvement, if and when you do achieve your self-improvement goals, do you then ask yourself … What’s next?

Scott Young wrote an article titled “What’s Beyond Self-Improvement?” He doesn’t list any credentials next to his name like MD, PhD, whatever! I’m assuming he’s a writer of general topics just like me.

Briefly summarized his articles states:

Most self-improvement objectives are born out of struggle. He says that when some people are struggling in their life, it’s the “struggle” that keeps them motivated and that’s what pushes them each day. But once they have achieved what they set out to do that “energizing force” or that “motivating tension” which was the reason they got out of bed each day, isn’t there any more.

So? So … you need to go BEYOND self-improvement.

He says that when that “tension” disappears, you just need to create “new struggles”. That’s not to say you intentionally make your life difficult so that you can become energized once more. What most people do is take on other people’s struggles. I mean … for you, life is good! But for someone else, life is not so good. Maybe you could help them overcome their struggles.

Mr. Young says his ideas are nothing new since “Every major world religion encourages something beyond self-improvement.”

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I’m glad he wrote that statement because at this point in the article, I was just starting to think ‘There’s something awfully familiar about what this guy is saying.’ 🤔🤔

Of course, it’s familiar since written records of religious beliefs, as well as philosophies, have been around for over 5,000 years. And that’s just the stuff that’s written. We’re not even talking about oral traditions.

I do follow a rule that if I can help someone who is struggling, I will. But I can’t say that after reading this article I was motivated to bring back the “tension” by creating any “new struggles”, nor by taking on the struggles of someone else. However, I was motivated to a quick search on the Internet to find some quotes life’s struggles. I’ll share them and you can tell me which quote is the one you can relate to the most. I relate to Number 4.

(1) “Embrace the struggle and let it make you stronger. It won’t last forever.”
~ Tony Gaskins

(2) “When you learn to see your struggles as opportunities to become stronger, better, wiser, then your thinking shifts from ‘I can’t do this’ to ‘I must do this.’”
~ Toni Sorenson

(3) “Self-realization demands very great struggle.”
~ Swami Sivananda

(4) Don’t compare your struggles to anyone else’s. Don’t get discouraged by the success of others. Make your own path and never give up.”
~ MJ Korvan

What do you think? Which quote do you relate to?

Thanks for reading.

NOTE: My original content previously published elsewhere on the web.

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