As I look back on history, I see not one perfect person. Society is full of individuals whose ideas and success has moved mountains in terms of human achievement and evolution of thought, yet individual flaws still permeate through. To achieve such mastery of the self requires years of practice, self-reflection, failure, and perseverance. To know thyself so intimately, is to achieve mastery of thyself.
Practice makes perfect is the old saying our ball coaches and parents have taught us. Keep going until you get it right is what life teaches us, but what do you do when you finally get it right. You keep practicing more until the pattern of behavior or action becomes muscle memory, engrained in the strengthening of the brain’s neural pathway functionality. We practice our faith, reading line after line until it becomes engrained in our mind. We practice good faith, honoring others who deserve recognition for our practices from those who came before us. Lessons taught down from generation to generation become our practice, our foundation from which we grow. To practice is to admit defeat, yet to still go on until one gets it right.
How often do you reflect on yourself? Is it only when you do wrong to yourself or to another, or is it constant, daily reflection of self. Such reflection creates the underlying system of thought for a self-aware being. To acknowledge the self, its strengths, weaknesses, and mental fortitude towards change keep us alive as we pass along through life. Everytime I look in the mirror, I acknowledge the person I am staring at is only a small version of myself. Reflection comes from within and expands outward, we reach into the depths of our conscience and consciousness as self-aware beings and grab ahold of ourselves. As we reflect on that inner-self, we release our inner desires, ill will, and irrational thoughts about the self and others. Nonetheless, we go through life reflecting on it, remember our emotions, feelings, choices, and perceptions hoping we can reconcile them.
To fail is to live life so intimately and courageously that one is willing to try and try again, only to miss the mark each time. Failure is a part of life. We fail at tests, games, jobs, and so on, yet what separates man is the ability to look inward at failure and have a positive outward effect on the whole self. To fail isn’t to admit defeat, but to get up and try again no matter the obstacle ahead of the self. The greatest example is the game of baseball, a major league batter is seen as above average if he gets a hit 3 out of every 10 at bats. He fails 7 out of 10 times, but he can achieve success in his career if gets a hit just 3 out of 10 times. Failure isn’t about admitting defeat, but acknowledging one will get up and try, try, and try again. But, failure and reflection go hand in hand. Without reflection, failure will surely repeat itself over and over again through life. To study life’s failures is to understand what we can change about ourselves to make us a better person, a wiser person.
Perseverance is a part of failure. To remain steadfast through life’s toughest moments is what separates us. We communicate with ourselves and others, learning the steps necessary for growth to occur. Without perseverance, there is no growth mindset, leading one to fail over and over again. To persevere is to grow towards the light of life’s hardest moments, not away from them, inevitably leading towards success.
The self simply isn’t who you are, it is who you are becoming. Through practice, failure, reflection, and perseverance, one continually improves themselves and over the course of a lifetime becomes a better version of themselves. The person in the mirror is only a physical representation of the self, what lies within provides the true essence of a man or woman.
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