20 Years: Another life
It seems like a long way off but 20 years from now is nearly double the time that I have already been on the earth. I hope to have accomplished many things but I am just going to explore one potential career/passion.
The potential life plan I want to explore is a combination of interests, passions and goals that I have had for several years: psychology, learning habits and ridiculously talented, successful people.
I would love to travel the world finding, interviewing, studying and learning from the most talented people on the planet. People like: Wim Hof “The Iceman” who climbed Mt. Everest in a pair of shorts because he has learned to perfectly regulate his body temperature no matter what environment he is in and the Chinese Grandmaster from my hometown who has the world record for breaking stacks of blocks of ice with one swift blow from his forehead. The people with perfect photographic memories, and other rare abilities.
There are many more people out there who have what we might call super-human abilities. All of these people had to start somewhere and learn to master their abilities through practice and discipline. Besides just people with crazy talents I would also try to find people who have become great leaders with unconventional ideas that are changing the developing world and the planet’s most pressing problems.
After finding and meeting with as many insanely talented people with out-of-this-world abilities I would be working on writing a book about how to develop the self-discipline, habits and learning patterns to do and become whatever you want to be or be good at.
Hopefully I would be able to travel all over the world to meet these people and in the process discover things that have never been seen or done before. I would hope that it would also open my eyes to new places with different problems and new solutions from the most interesting people alive.
This was mentioned I believe once in an article and once in a book that were a part of our reading for our course, but it is a suggestion I would love to bring up once more here: a scrapbook of everything. Magazine articles, interviews, ideas… everything you come across. The people with the greatest potential for great ideas are those exposed to the greatest amounts of stimulus, and have a habit for review. Keep that book. Flip through it every now and then. It will be a lifelong endeavor. May turn into a couple volumes. But what great stories that book will have, and how great an asset it can be.
I think, unfortunately, we have developed a mindset of “I’m gonna do it. I can do it. It’s all me. I got this.” While we seem to believe we are more empowered than ever, which we are… we potentially may be crippling ourselves. How many of the people in the world scrape and sweat and toil and struggle to get where they got. They did it, by themselves. Congrats. But how much more effective would it have been to find the wisdom of someone ELSE who made that mistake, rather than making it yourself. I think we would do well to remember a ‘we can do it’ and ‘they can help’ mentality.
I say this because I am glad you seek those who have gone before and wisdom beyond your lifespan, and perhaps beyond the lifespan of those who will teach you. That’s real progress: wisdom passed down.
James, we need to watch “Human Planet” together. That will get the gears going. That sort of journalism records history and culture in remarkable ways. Check out a clip at http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/humanplanetexplorer/
And just when I thought they couldn’t top “Blue Planet”…