I want to make things pretty and organized. With the concept of “taking things personally” and “taking personal accountability”, I wanted to make it pretty.
Or,
maybe I wanted to make it elegant.
I actually drew a four quadrantgraph and graphed “taking it personally” on the Y-axis and “taking personal accountability” on the X-axis.
Maybe I could come up with some catchy name to describe each quadrant…
F THAT!!!
As I make it pretty and elegant, the concept of taking things personally versus taking personal accountability for things sounds like all the other stuff we read about.
It starts to sound like all the generic nonsense that gives “self-help” a bad name.
My obsession with “taking things personally” versus “taking personal accountability” for things comes from my observations about how massively it affects people and conversations.
When I take things personally in the negative sense, I feel physically different. My gut is clenched.
F’ PRETTY…
I wish I could convey the rawness and the negativity of taking things personally in the wrong way.
It makes people hate each other.
It leads to divorce.
It makes people hate their jobs and quit companies.
It makes people hate people.
It makes people die of heart attacks.
And then I think about the greats…
Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandhi, Steve Jobs, Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Mother Theresa, Susan B. Anthony…
These people defined themselves by their purpose and mission.
Maybe that is the balance.
We need BOTH – to take things personally and to take personal accountability to live a most productive and purposeful life. But of paramount importance is WHAT exactly we take personally and what we take personal accountability for…
We must take personally OUR PURPOSE IN LIFE, THE REASON WHY WE TRULY BELIEVE WE EXIST.
EVERYTHING ELSE must NOT be taken personally.
And, to be honest, people that have managed to change the world have often lived in great disharmony. They have sacrificed themselves, and often their families, their peace of mind, and often their lives for their cause.
The only thing that I will graciously embrace disharmony for – is for creating harmony in the world. It’s ironic.
TAKE NOTHING PERSONALLY… unless its WHY you live.
And, QUESTION why you live… question it until you have an answer that you are ready to die for…
It’s not the “soft, touchy feely stuff” that I am talking about…
It’s the essence of our peace of mind, our happiness, our success… our ability to know JOY… day in and day out.
Sorry… I can’t seem to get off of this topic.
TAKE NOTHING TRIVIAL PERSONALLY… and yet maintain your personal accountability for your roles, initiatives and commitments… continually ask yourself how YOU can make things better, how YOU can modify your life, how YOU can help others see the better path, how YOU can GROW…
And, I am telling you, it starts feeling like an invisible super power.
Embrace the grayness and the ugly... don't try to make it pretty!
Take life and every single day PERSONALLY... but NOT the details, NOT the conversations , NOT the interactions, NOT the decisions or the indecisions, NOT the thoughts nor the fears, NOR the people around you that make up the day...
Take your LIFE and your PURPOSE personally -
And, Go get dirty, be imperfect, change your mind.
Let it all roll off of you...
And, change the world around you.
In the way that only you personally can...
Yours in harmony,
Nestor