You need to focus on you, build yourself up... and it’s not selfish, it’s vital for everyone else.
We live in fairly uncertain times, a pandemic sweeps the globe, politics is perhaps at its most polarised and we are not even sure if the text we read in the news is true. I am not going to tackle all those topics, in fact I urge you to spend a bit less time thinking about them - think about you and what you want to be.
You see humanity needs you to be your best, it does not need you to be someone else so stop looking at others to compare, there’s another reason why you shouldn’t look to others, it shifts your focus from what matters - you.
Today I was taught another lesson by my children, this time it was the older ones, ten and eight respectively. They are growing up and working out the world, they are not thinking about the world, they are thinking about themselves in the world. It was a fairly standard sibling interaction that I saw and my reaction to it that formed the thread of this post. The interaction was nothing special, something about rabbit food(!) and I’ll save the kids the public judgement on exactly what happened... I won’t claim some kind of parenting success here, but I think I stumbled upon something important. “Don’t put your ‘sibling’ down, focus on yourself.”
As I ran and considered my knee-jerk reaction to the minor altercation, it dawned upon me... and I’m not the first to say this.
If you want to be the tallest building in the town, you have two choices - knock down every other building, or focus on building the biggest and best building you can.
I am guilty, it is far easier to focus on others, criticise them, pull apart their failings, highlight their weakness... but does tearing them down help you in any way? You might feel better for a moment, but has it changed your day, your week? Sure, you feel you are right.. we all want that, but stop. Do you want to be the tallest building in an empty city... do you want to be the tallest building in a thriving city, one where we are all reaching for the skies.
Look around - we think humanity needs a bit of this thinking? Imagine a world where you made yourself the best possible version you could be, invested in learning and growing, helping those around you to learn and grow - well that sounds like a place I want to be.
Let’s stand together, as one community, one humanity and build ourselves up and out of this current predicament. Surround yourself with the people that nourish your soul, those that challenge you to grow higher and further, those that encourage you...
When times are hard, and I think we can all agree they are perhaps a little tough now, the first place we look.... is often at others. It’s hard, it’s very hard to look inside and make myself better, to challenge my judgement, to question my thinking... far easier to look to others, it’s their problem, it’s their fault. Is it?
Build your own house, it’s your house and you have to live in it every day... I don’t think that it’s selfish to be your best, as long as you aren’t you best because you are tearing others down.
Let’s build the tallest buildings in the best city in the most amazing world.