"Not many of us know what it's like to become the perfect version of ourselves."- Eddie Morra.
Those words, uttered by Bradley Cooper's character in the 2011 Limitless, stuck with me. It was before the movie had even come out. The trailer was all that it took to inspire me. The movie was about slacker Eddie Morra, a writer, who was going nowhere in his life. Maybe I identified with him because I wanted to be a writer. Maybe it was because I was stuck in a rut in my life when I watched that trailer, but the concept that the trailer presented inspired me: being the perfect version of yourself.
In the movie, Eddie takes a pill that enhances his mental capacity. It allows him to think and learn super fast, and even access his most obscure memories. Due to his increased mental capacity, Eddie begins to expand in all areas. He gets fit, finishes his book, gets into stock marketing, gets rich, and gets his life straight. He even runs for Congress. (None of this is a spoiler, but I am not endorsing the movie either. Especially not as a family movie. I simply want to highlight the tag line, and the concept of growing in all areas of life.)
Take a minute to imagine what it would be like to improve in all areas of your life. What would it be like to be the best version of yourself? What would you do with a higher IQ or more knowledge? What if you were actually as healthy as you wish you could be? What could you do if you understood the influence you have on others? What if you could have your dream job and if money were no problem? Perfection in five of the core areas of life: intellectual, physical, social, occupational and financial.
Take a minute to imagine that, and then I need you to snap back to reality. Sadly, I must inform you, we will never reach perfection. However, that does not mean we shouldn't try to improve. For anyone who has studied the history of western civilization, you might remember the Greek value called "arete", which is the pursuit of perfection. We may never reach perfection, but let us continue to improve in all areas of life. This year I want to focus on six of them.
1.Religion- if you are not religious, there is still stuff in my blog for you, so hold on. This area could be as simple as your philosophical "presuppositions" or your view of life. How do you answer the big questions? I will explain how this area affects everything else we do in my next post, so stay with me. Religion can also include any religious practices, such as praying or meeting with other believers.
2.Intellect- of course I can understand how an atheist may want to include religion (presuppositions) in this category. What information is in your head? How much of the information is true? How much is false? How well does your brain work? What is your ability to think and reason, figure things out, and memorize them? Can you think critically? How do you ask the right questions? This area is arguably the most important. You need your intellect to choose your idealogical path, to know how to keep yourself healthy, to improve in your career, and so forth.
3.Occupation- this area is about more than employment, it's about what you do with your time. On one end of the spectrum is your hobby, which benefits you, and probably only you. In the center of the spectrum, your job is about mutual benefit: you provide people with a product or service that they want or need, and they give you money (which you want or need). On the other end there is volunteer work: work that you do for others with little or no benefit for yourself.
4.Finances- Now don't let anyone make you feel guilty about this. Money is not evil! We all could use more money, but you don't want to choose money over people. "People are made to be loved and things are made to be used. The confusion in this world is that people are being used and things are being loved." With more money you can donate more money, you can spend more money (which keeps people in their jobs), and you can have nice things for yourself. So it's important to work hard (but not too much) to make money, and also to be able to manage the money that you make.
5.Social- because what good is a life without friends. You can be religious, you can be the smartest, you can be the healthiest or the wealthiest, but without friends life is depressing. Not only that, but we all have influence over the people we interact with... just by default. What kind of influence are you on others? Good? Bad? Or one they could do without?
6.Health- as I've stated before this area is not my strongest suit, but it's still important so I'm still going to tackle it. You only have one body, so we must take care of what we've been given.
I want this blog to be all about wisdom, and this year particularly about growing in all areas of life. Naturally we will have one or two areas that we excel in, and it's good to have a specialization. However, while we improve in our specialties, we must also grow and improve in other areas. So if you are interested in pursuing perfection for yourself, join me on this journey.
