SELF-ADVANCEMENT

OVER the years, there have been hundreds of best-selling publications exhorting us to discover our best potential and inner strength through self-examination.

The influence of these classic works has resulted in an increasing recognition of life’s opportunities and our place in the universe. Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to win Friends and influence People’ of 1936, Napoleon Hill (‘Think and Grow Rich’, 1937), Norman Vincent Peale (‘The Power of Positive Thinking’, 1952) and Eckhart Tolle (‘The Power of Now’, 1997) have all shown us the way to achieve different interpretations of success.

Carnegie shows us how to relate to our fellow beings for the greater good of all of us. “A stranger is a friend you have not got to know yet.” Hill focuses on achieving material wealth and, along with it, a richness in character.

Whereas Peale demonstrates that the way we think and believe determines our achievements, Tolle explains how we miss the point of our existence (the present moment) by dwelling in excessive reflection on the past and worrying about the future.

They are all saying we can call on our minds to believe we can achieve anything. The mind controls the body and its immune system. Self-belief enables us to overcome illnesses, setbacks, grief and remorse.

We are encouraged to love and believe in ourselves as we nurture our bodies, minds and spirits. But self-love means being grateful for who we are; it does not mean regarding ourselves as superior to other people. We are, after all, connected to all other beings as individual parts of the universal energy.

We are all incarnated here for a maximum of 120 years, temporary custodians of all we possess and of all our knowledge, experiences and relationships. All this will evaporate when the Grim Reaper calls time. Eventually, the human body (our temporary encasement), will quickly succumb to the flames or the worms and will eventually cease to exist. But energy is indestructible.

In meditation we can feel the energy within our inner body and through it we can sense how our spirit will survive beyond mortality. This is very comforting.

In the past I have witnessed two very odd forms of parental incentivisation. Many years ago, in a crowded shopping centre, a mother was heard screaming at her eight-year-old son “I told you to come here, you stupid bastard!”

What kind of a self-image is she hoping to cultivate in this young lad? And what does it say about her own past moral standards? More recently, I heard another woman, in a pub, conscious of her son’s need for refined table manners, advising him to “wipe your mouth, you grubby little bugger.” Hmmm!

Most of those of us who seek improvement need motivation, whether through books, yoga, Tai-Chi, religion or role models. Children, especially, need positive guidance and encouragement to become the best they can be. The future is in their hands.

David Worboys’s opinions are his own and are not necessarily representative of those of the publishers, advertisers or sponsors.