Skip to main content

The More we limit ourselves,the more resourceful we become

Sharing a wonderful email I received from James Clear early this morning ...
=======================================================
In 1843, Soren Kierkegaard published his first major book, Either/Or (ebook), in which he tries to answer the question, “How should we live?”
During a particularly interesting passage, the Danish philosopher discusses our tendency to see boredom as a negative influence and points out that we often use boredom as justification to jump continually from thing to thing.
“One is weary of living in the country and moves to the city; one is weary of one’s native land and goes abroad; one is weary of Europe and goes to America, etc.; one indulges in the fanatical hope of an endless journey from star to star…
One is weary of eating on porcelain and eats on silver; wearying of that, one eats on gold.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
The assumption that often drives these behaviors is that if we want to find happiness and meaning in our lives, then we need more: more opportunity, more wealth, and more things.
We start to believe that moving somewhere new will remove the messiness of life. Or, that if we just lived in a new location or had a new job, then we would finally be granted the permission and ability to do the things we always wanted to do. If had more, we would be set.
Kierkegaard argues, however, that the life we are looking for can be found embracing less, not more.

The Power of Limitations

“The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
History is filled with examples of people who embraced their limitations rather than fought them.
Our limitations provide us with the greatest opportunity for creativity and inventiveness.

Let Your Limitations Fill You With Strength

“A solitary prisoner for life is extremely resourceful; to him a spider can be a source of great amusement. Think of our school days; we were at an age when there was no aesthetic consideration in the choosing of our teachers, and therefore they were often very boring—how resourceful we were then! What fun we had catching a fly, keeping it prisoner under a nutshell, and watching it run around with it! What delight in cutting a hole in the desk, confining a fly in it, and peeking at it through a piece of paper! How entertaining it can be to listen to the monotonous dripping from the roof! What a meticulous observer one becomes, detecting every little sound or movement.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
It can be easy to spend your life complaining about the opportunities that are withheld from us and the resources that we need to make our goals a reality.
But there is an alternative. You can use your constraints to drive creativity. You canembrace your limitations to foster skill development. The problem is rarely the opportunities we have, but how we use them.
  • You want to write, but don’t have a large audience. Not a problem. That is your constraint. How can you create a work of art for your small corner of the universe?
  • You are not as strong or mobile as you wish? No worry. That is your constraint. What is the best workout your body can deliver given these boundaries?
The only thing needed to begin a new life is a new perspective. Let your limitations fill you with strength rather than deplete your power.
The more we limit ourselves, the more resourceful we become.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Top 10 Analytics Courses in India

http://analyticsindiamag.com/top-6-analytics-courses-in-india/ The demand for trained analytics professionals has witnessed a massive growth in recent years. The dearth of skilled manpower can be overcome with serious intervention at the education level and imparting training on specific Analytical and statistical tools. This goes to say that training in Analytics is of foremost importance to match the ever growing demand and dearth in supply. Yet, there is a severe dearth of good training programs in the field. In this article, Analytics India Magazine investigates nine courses on Analytics being offered by premier institutes of India. Certificate Programme in Business Analytics – ISB, Hyderabad ISB is offering a one year Certification in Business Analytics with an aim to create Next generation Data Management Scientists. The programme is designed on a schedule that minimizes disruption of work and personal pursuits. The program is a combination of classroom and Technology...

Online Education in India: Trends & Future Prospects

https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/online-education-in-india-trends-future-prospects-blogId-14763 With the development of technology, India has witnessed an enhanced acceptance of online education over a period of few years. Many students and working professionals have joined different e-learning platforms in the past few years in order to enhance their skills. And, looking at trends, the number of people adopting online education platforms is expected to increase significantly in the near future. As per a recent report released by KPMG India and Google, Online Education in India: 2021, the market for online education in India is expected to witness a magnificent growth of eight times in the next five years, i.e., from USD 247 million in 2016 to USD 1.96 billion in 2021. Such high growth in online education market is projected to be the outcome of increased number of paid online education users from 1.57 million in 2016 to 9.5 million in 2021. So, as the market for e-learni...

Popular Applications of Artificial Intelligence

AI is relevant to any intellectual task. [204]  Modern artificial intelligence techniques are pervasive and are too numerous to list here. Frequently, when a technique reaches mainstream use, it is no longer considered artificial intelligence; this phenomenon is described as the  AI effect . [205] High-profile examples of AI include autonomous vehicles (such as  drones  and  self-driving cars ), medical diagnosis, creating art (such as poetry), proving mathematical theorems, playing games (such as Chess or Go), search engines (such as  Google search ), online assistants (such as  Siri ), image recognition in photographs, spam filtering, prediction of judicial decisions [206]  and targeting online advertisements. [204] [207] [208] With social media sites overtaking TV as a source for news for young people and news organisations increasingly reliant on social media platforms for generating distribution, [209]  major publishers now use art...