Tag: growth

Always seek to grow

Carl Setzer

Always seeking growth

And to manage all my fears

Become what I want 

It’s frightening, at times, to always seek growth. It requires constant reminders to watch for fear, the temptation to be comfortable. As a writer and artist, I see how critical it is to push boundaries. Mine as well as others. Perhaps mine are the most important boundaries to smash through. Destroying that which holds me back, which robs me of joy. 

A Haiku About Change 

Carl Setzer

Out of darkness: light 

Our souls evolving forwards 

Dawn coming out of night 

Change, changes: babies become children, children grow tall, dawns become days, winter becomes spring. As we learn, we grow. Experiences grant us wisdom and insight. Often hard won wisdom. Every day we’re different. 

I’m exploring new ideas as a blogger. What interests me right now? Positivity. 

I’ve been thinking for some time that our culture focuses too much on outrage, anger and despair. Everything from our news foci to our political selections get made based upon such. We’ve become deeply divided, deeply distrustful of each other. We’ve come to a point of gridlock. Which is blamed upon the other side’s idiocy (at best) or evil intent. 

I want to focus on a different path. The current mindset has no way forward. At best, one side will temporarily gain enough if an advantage to steamroll through an agenda, fueling outrage on the opposite side. I believe there’s a better way. 

I believe we can seek out inspiration instead of outrage. That we can be motivated by this inspiration to move in a common direction. That we don’t need to gorge at the trough of outrage. 

We can embrace the power of the individual, of our ability to adapt and grow. Yet we can do so without a Pollyannaish disconnect from reality. Nor do we need to divorce the reality of societal systems dysfunctionality. 

I believe there’s a path where we can embrace humility and accept our incomplete understandings. That we can learn to love those different. 
I haven’t developed a clear vision of what that works looks like, for its quite alien from mine. We can explore it together. Shall we?

The Lies of Impostor Syndrome

Carl Setzer

I love this one by Jorge Cham of PhD comics.

Reminds me of all the times that I’ve had anxiety attacks when asked to push outside of my boundaries. So, a few things to remember:

  • Prof. Jones has plenty invested in the success of his students/team. And a good leader will see things in you that you can’t see. And such a leader won’t let you sit mired in fear and insecurity, but push you past your self-imposed boundaries.
  • Mentors like the above are one of the most crucial elements to pushing past mediocrity into greatness.
  • Impostor Syndrome = LIES!!!

Alrighty, back to your regularly scheduled Thursday.