Dang, been quite a long break I've taken since journaling. I can feel a difference though in my mental health when I'm not able to reflect or synthesize or analyze or have those Satori moments. I haven't been able to dissect a lot of moments in the past 1-2 weeks where I've had a lot of interactions and learning opportunities.
To answer that myself, in addition to looking for high self-esteem, knowledge, and wisdom, service-minded and self-growth are two things that I'm looking for. Knowledge and wisdom is actually a result of self-growth. Knowledge is the result of external self-growth and wisdom the result of internal self-growth. Self-esteem, self-growth, and selflessness. So I'm not looking for lagging indicators in someone, I'm looking for particular beliefs and mindsets since those are the most entrenched in someone's thoughts, words, and deeds (energy). I am enough. I'm becoming better and better every day. I am giving back to society in some way. These are almost identical to Be Extraordinary's 3MIQ of Experiences, Growth, and Contribution. Self-growth and selflessness are the most direct correlation. High self-esteem is phrased as a destination but this and the other 2 are mindsets. If I have high self-esteem mindset, then I will be attracting the experiences in that 3MIQ section. These mindsets are a result of someone's identity, which is formed by their beliefs, which themselves are determined by experiences and feelings. So to get to know someone, I have to truly understand their experiences and feelings. And someone has to be interested enough to do the same with me.
Circling back a bit, what is my decision-making framework? I'll only answer this in the context of gift-giving since it's a much more open-ended question if we expanded to every area of life. The main question I must answer myself is "How will this make them feel?" Everything else is a subsection of that feeling. If that feeling is what stays with the recipient, then that should be my main objective. The thing is I actually can't have a rigid set of factors for every single person. There will be different factors for each person that will provoke certain emotions and feelings. So I need to individualize those triggers, if you will, and give gifts that maximize those triggers. That's the simplest answer here for me. No need to get this too complicated.
To expand the scope now, I can view everything I do as a gift to myself. Having gratitude for all the 'positive' and 'negative' things that happen in my life is basically like viewing everything as a gift. The things I think, say, and do are just gifts to my future self. It's how I want my future self to feel. So don't I want to give the best possible gifts from my current self to my future self? Sometimes, these gifts may not make our future self feel the best because we've misaligned or misjudged how the gift we give ourselves now will impact our feelings in the future. Sometimes, these gifts can turn into poison because we wanted to give the gift to our current self rather than the future self. Funny then, what the German word for poison is. :) (Look it up.) But if you're prioritizing your future self and not the present self aren't you living in the future and not enjoying the current moment or experience? Correct, so its a matter of past, current, and future-self management balance. Living "in the moment" may require you to reflect on the past or project into the future but that's the present task at hand. As long as that's our intention to direct our focus in those areas, then I'd still say that's living in the present. And living in the present can be the biggest gift of all. :)
Comments