How to Know When You’ve Made It(摘录自 work from passion)

In the introduction I said that awakening from emotional numbness begins with a decision. You finally get tired of avoiding reality. You want to experience life with all of its trials, tribulations, and joys, rather than play it safe. Before, you may have thought if you were uncomfortable there was something wrong with you. But now you know that discomfort is a sign that you are stretching beyond your limits, and that if you persevere in your efforts you will soon feel as if you are in a new and better world.

Below I have listed twelve ways to know when you’ve left your old self behind. Remember that when you are fully alive the process of challenge and growth is never ending. You set and then reach a goal, you celebrate your victory, and then you move on and up in your life.

You See Every Part of Your Life as a Success

You know that you have arrived when you see all your experiences as necessary to your growth. As you look at past choices, you understand that you did the best you could at the time, given your level of awareness. You are patient with yourself during this process, forgiving yourself quickly for not seeing what may now seem obvious. You know that awakening from emotional numbness takes time, so you do not rush that dynamic process. As soon as a shift in your thinking occurs, insight comes.

Your World Is Vivid

When you have made it you experience your world as vivid and intense. All hues sharpen and become more defined — as they did for the great English poet John Keats. The editors of the Norton Anthology of English Literature write that since Keats combines all his senses in his poems, the reader is able to fully apprehend Keats’s experience. Keats experienced an intense delight at the sheer existence of things outside himself, an astonishing poetic power that reminded Keats’s friends, as it has so many critics since, of the language of Shakespeare.^[2] As the English critic, editor, and journalist John Middleton Murry said about Keats’s emotional intensity and short-lived genius, “his uniqueness is such that he can be adequately interpreted only by himself.”^[3]

Keats embodies the principle of working with passion. He used his skill with language to imbue his poetry with his mind, body, and spirit. His short life (he died at the age of twenty-six) is a remarkable study of love’s power, and his poetry reflects that power — intellectual, sensuous, aspiring.

Just as the images of great poetry startle you with their originality, feeling intensely gives you a unique experience of yourself and the world. It is as if you are in a dream and yet fully awake. You see and feel more because your heart is open and receptive, just as it was before you shut it down. Like Sleeping Beauty, you came to life with the kiss of true love: self-acceptance.

If the sun shines, that is fine with you, and if it rains, that is fine too. If a job or a relationship ends you grieve the loss and move on. In time you accept the loss as necessary to your growth and to that of the other person.

You Are Selective

At the same time that you avidly court life’s experiences, you become highly selective. (Passion clue: discrimination marks the truly passionate.)

In his autobiography, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats described gathering carefully chosen experiences “as if for a collector’s cabinet.”^{[4 ]}You reject experiences that are not good for or helpful to you once you have “gotten there.” You turn down experiences that cause you to feel pain, sorrow, or guilt. You do not force yourself to be with people you do not like — including family members — or to do what you hate doing. No one can “trap” you because you do not trap yourself with illusion and self-deception. You examine your motives in the clear light of honesty, the most beautiful word in the English language.

You Are Honest and Forgiving

Our lives sometimes go in directions with traumatic results (unwise marriages, divorce, loss of life, and financial loss). You are quick to admit to and learn from your mistakes, and you set about making things right. You apologize and ask for forgiveness whenever you hurt others. You forgive those who injured you, just as you forgive yourself. You build anew from adversity and do not linger in self-recrimination or blame.

You Find Meaning in Your Experience

Those of us who have experienced the magic of giving birth have an understanding of the driving force behind creative experience. The child decides the moment of birth, not the mother. “Why all the pain, why so much time?” you ask yourself. You finally understand that nature has its own rhythm and cycle. Realizing that, you do not choose to suffer anymore. You accept all your experiences, and that is what makes them significant.

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl described the attributes of those who made it through the horrors of the concentration camps.^[5] Those who went on to productive lives after their release saw meaning in their imprisonment. Jung says that all experience is acceptable to the conscious mind when it is given meaning.

On a lighter note, you give meaning to your experience in much the same way as the characters in the Peanuts comic strip do. Lucy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Schroeder, and Snoopy eventually make sense out of the conflicts in their lives, all the while making us laugh at them and ourselves. The same principle can be seen in the structure of music: tension and disharmony are resolved in the final chords, the artist’s goal.

You Develop Mastery

Your desire to master a task is another clue that lets you know when you have made it. You are not satisfied with less than your best effort. Mastery is the accomplishment of a task for which you are given recognition. When you are the best, you perform with the precision of a champion. People who do what they do best do not look like they are working; rather, they look like they are playing. Olympic athletes look like they are playing when their event goes well, as do Academy Award–winning actors and actresses.

You are relaxed and confident when you are at the top of your game, whether you rear children, breed show dogs, doctor the sick, start businesses, serve the sick and needy, or take care of your customers. A young woman who works for the automobile dealership where I bought my car calls me after every service visit to see if I am satisfied. She is so sincere I doubt she realizes the effect she has on me. She just does what comes naturally — relating well to her company’s customer.

Another woman I know is the director of my favorite charity, a faith-based organization that provides shelter and job assistance to homeless and battered women and their children. Her letters to donors are so full of hope and compassion it is obvious that she loves her work and the women and children she serves.

When you master what you do, you do not overcorrect or overcriticize. A good tennis coach, for example, says, “Turn your wrist half an inch; lean your body forward, into the ball; keep your knees slightly flexed.” Like the master coach, you correct as you go since a slight adjustment makes all the difference between success and failure. Navigational devices on aircraft are good analogies for the principle of adjusting as you go. During flight, the computer constantly adjusts course from takeoff to landing. Rarely is the aircraft exactly on course. Ask any pilot, and he or she will tell you that being slightly off course is the norm, but the plane always lands on the right runway. Your personal navigational computer is your heart; you trust its wisdom, and so you always land right where you need to.

You Are Alert

When you have made it you are alert. You pay attention to clues in the environment, since you know there are no accidents. You take careful note of daily life, as well as the people who come into your life. You are like the movie camera that records data for later recollection.

You Are Healthy

When you have made it you are rarely ill. But when you are sick, you examine your illness to see what part of your thinking is off balance. Emotions, particularly suppressed anger, are behind so many of our physical ailments. You do not dam up anger for years, months, or even days. Instead you deal with it constructively. When you have made it you laugh frequently; you exercise vigorously; and you eat and drink moderately. You rest when you need rest. In other words, you use common sense.

You Listen to the Unusual

Prophets are sometimes found in unlikely places, like the woman you converse with at your bus stop, or they are young in years, like your own child. Prophets are always idealists, but they make us think. Nearly every major advance in civilization was once a cockeyed scheme that most people ridiculed. If you are worried that civilization now seems to be headed in a self-destructive direction, realize that the best help you can be to your world is to improve yourself and to follow your passion, since passionate people change the world for the better.

You Use Growth Resources

When you have made it you use resources that help you to assimilate and integrate your experience. You work with a therapist; or you go to group therapy, such as recovery programs that help you to maintain clarity. You attend workshops, seminars, and other courses that help you to learn and grow. Your rule of thumb for any resource is: Does it work? You and only you know the self-awareness tool that works for you. You are self-oriented in the most positive sense.

 

You Have a Strong Sense of Self

Having a strong sense of self is not the same as being selfish, although self-confidence can appear as selfishness to people who see themselves as victims. Confident people will not sacrifice their mental, physical, and emotional health for anyone. Others may interpret this as arrogance, but love of self precedes all relationships with others.

When you love yourself you examine all your choices, not only to be an example to others but also because you know there are consequences to your choices. Thinking before you act takes self-control, but you know from experience that it is the way to make wise decisions.

Your Spirituality Is Individualized

When you have arrived, your spiritual life is intensely personal. You are aware of a presence that fills your heart and mind. You radiate the joy and confidence that come from knowing you are a beloved child of God, however you conceive of God. As the prophet Jeremiah said about people who feel loved, “their souls shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow anymore.”