Most people focus on the wrong thing when it comes to changing or having an impact on the world. I think at the end of the day, for a man, leaving a legacy is something that’s very important. Something that we want all want to do in some way, shape, or form. We all want to have an impact on the world around us, even if its just in a small way. But here’s the problem that many well-minded people run into. People who may have their hearts in the right place but without getting their minds there as well.
There’s a problem with changing the world, well many problems. But we’re going to get into the biggest one here. And that is people try to focus on changing the world but don’t first focus on changing themselves. Most people look at change as something where they throw themselves into a cause and that cause effects change and while there is some logic to it, that’s not really how it works.
If you want to truly and honestly change the world around you, you first have to focus on yourself. First you focus on yourself and changing yourself. And then through example and living as a changed person you affect the people around you, friends, family, and even acquaintances. Then you move on to your local community and so on and so forth. You don’t start by trying to change the world.
Self-Mastery Comes Before All Else
You can expect to lead others or affect change if you can’t first master yourself. It’s unfortunate by things like charity often become ways for people to delay working on themselves. Much easier to get an often self-righteous dopamine boost slapping on a coat of paint or ladling out soup than it is to look yourself in the eyes and deal with your own problems. As weird as it sounds other people’s problems can become excuses for not working on your own problems. Which is the opposite of how things are supposed to work.
Take care of yourself first and foremost, then your house, then your community, and then look to other things. Self-mastery comes first. Look at your habits, if your life riddled with bad habits? Then you need to focus on correcting that first and foremost. I’m not saying charity is bad I’m just saying for people that truly want to change the world around them that self-mastery is the first step to true power and change. Master yourself, live as an example, and change the world around you through that.
That’s far more powerful than charity which really doesn’t help all that much if we’re being honest. I don’t say that to be mean but its what’s true. And your focus should be on bettering your life and the life of those around you, not random strangers that could care less if you and yours die. The proper path is focusing on yourself, your family, and then your community. Problems are staring you in the face not far away.
The Path To True Change & Help
Focus on yourself first, that’s where everything comes from. Make a list of bad habits that you want to break, things that are weakening you and leading you down a wrong path. Then make a list of good habits that you want to start. Go beyond simple eating better or sleeping more. Make them as specific as possible and give yourself time limits. Work on quitting one bad habit and starting one good habit at a time. The worst thing you can do is overwhelm yourself and try to do everything at once.
And the best way to affect change is to live as an example, more so than anything else, simply living as an example will have a bigger impact on people and the world around you than anything else will. Look at the traits, the ideals, the life that you’d like to embody and then see if your day to day actions line up with that. If they don’t then you know you have work to do. Are you embodying the warrior poet? Or a lower form of life? You should work every day to embody the highest aspects of yourself.
That’s where true change will come from. The best change is that you affect in yourself, then your family, then your community. Don’t worry about the world as a whole. The world as a whole is an awful place filled with awful people. Don’t concern yourself with something that has no concern for you and that you can’t affect anyways, that’s nothing but foolishness. Ironically focusing on yourself is the least selfish thing that you can do and the path to true change for the things that matter.
Actions Beget Character
Look at your daily actions, not your thoughts or your ideals or what you’d like your actions to be, but rather look at what your actions are. Write them down if that helps, it’s for your eyes only. So you can honestly look at yourself and see what you need to do. Fix yourself before worrying about fixing the world. Get yourself in order before you worry about getting your house in order. And get your house in order before you worry about getting your community on order. And get your community in order before you worry about getting your nation in order and so on and so forth.
Most people go about all of this in the wrong way. Look at your actions and see if they line up with who you want to be. Because it is your actions that delineate and define you as Jefferson said. It is action that begets character, nothing else. Make your actions line up with the ideals that you have, granted that those ideals are based in wisdom and not foolishness, and you’ll be where you want to be.
Take inventory of yourself. Change yourself first and foremost, you’re the only thing you have any control over. And by changing yourself you can then change the world.
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-Charles Sledge
