Who is not satisfied with himself will grow; who is not sure of his own correctness will learn many things. – Chinese Proverbs
What does that mean?
I just love the Chinese quotes, it seems that they are always translated into such odd English. I’ll take a stab at rewording it into two sentences and see if I can’t help it to sound a little more like English:
The person who is not satisfied with themselves, they will grow. The person who is not sure of their own correctness, they will learn many things.
With this as a starting point, I would say that the root of the saying is dissatisfaction and doubt can be useful tools, if used correctly. They will be most useful to you if you use them to improve yourself, to move forward physically, emotionally, spiritually or intellectually.
At the opposite end are those who believe they are always right and completely satisfied with themselves. They will never seek to learn another thing, nor will they ever make an effort improve themselves in any way. The person with these traits believes themselves to be as close to perfect as they can get, and that is just plain sad.
Why is self improvement important?
Well, I guess that’s the question, isn’t it? How close to perfect are you? In reality, I think most of us know we aren’t even close to perfect. The question then becomes how much effort will it take to move up to the next level, and is it worth it to you?
I don’t expect most of you to have any great use for a body that looks like a Greek statue of a god or goddess. Yeah, it might be nice, but the maintenance is a real pain. Nor do I expect most of you have the need to keep your brain sharp enough to take on a world ranked chess champion or a Nobel Laureate on their own turf.
Spiritually, I don’t think too many of us could challenge the Pope or the Dalai Lama, nor do I think that there is a need to. I can’t think of a measure for emotional growth, but I don’t think very many of you are looking forward to your debut on the The Jerry Springer Show as a big step forward, right?
In short, most of us have some room for improvement in our lives, and some desires to improve as well. I believe that it is a good thing to improve oneself. Eventually, with age, it will become a fight to retain what we used to have, but I know I will continue to try to improve myself. How about you?
Where can I apply this in my life?
What do you want to do better that you are currently doing? What do you not do (or not do well) now that you want to start doing? Grab some paper and write a few of these ideas down. They can be from any area of your life, from the physical, the mental, the intellectual, the emotional and whatever other ways you might divide your life.
For one thing, I’m a blogger. Obviously, I have much to learn as a blogger. I think my content is fairly solid, but I’m going through some online training classes, trying to work my way up the learning curve. So far, things are going fairly well. But there is still a long way to go, and I’m sure it will take me some time to pull it all together.
How about you? Choose one of the ideas you have written down. You can always come back and try this again with a different idea, so pick one and let’s get started. Even if you are recognized as one of best in your field, you probably have some room for improvement, right?
OK, so you know you need to improve and what you will try to improve, now what? I’d start by trying to figure out what way would be the most practical for you. In some situations, reading or listening is the best way to move forward. In other cases you might have to do physical things or have an additional person with you as a training partner, coach or mentor.
Once you have an idea as to what might be best for your situation, search for it. The internet is a big place. There is lots to buy, lots to research, lots of businesses to find, and people to connect with. There are also friends to ask, papers to read, phone books to look at and whatever other sources you might have.
After all this searching (it probably wasn’t as hard to do as it was to read that mess of a paragraph), you now should have a pretty good idea as to what help is available. Now you just have to fit it into your schedule and your budget. That can be a pain, but it has to be done.
If none of what you came up with in the first attempt fit neither your schedule nor your budget, it’s time to try again, this time with your constraints in mind. You might have passed over learning from a book or a CD or online due to a preference for a coach, but if you can’t afford one, you need a ‘Plan B’.
Whatever your goals are, wherever you’re going, you should strive to improve yourself. A little here, a little there, every week, every month, every year, and pretty soon, you are going to be Awesome (or even more awesome than you already are).
From: Twitter, @AncientProverbs
confirmed at : http://www.thetop100.net/the-art-and-literature-zone/david-roads-top-100-ancient-proverbs/who-is-not-satisfied-with-himself-will-grow-who-is-not-sure-of-his-own-correctn/list/z30l288i103153.aspx
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