Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that, “Every man is an impossibility until he is born.” So many people feel powerless and insignificant when it comes to social issues and world events, thinking that even if they did everything right in their own personal lives, their welfare would still be at the mercy of the action of others. Such people according to Tony Robbins fall into the mindset of thinking, “Even if I get my own life and the lives of my family in order, what good will it do? Somebody in a position of power could accidentally push the button and mess our lives anyway.” This kind of belief system fosters the feeling of being out of control and impotent to create change in any significant level, and naturally leads to learned helplessness typified by the phrase, “Why even try?”
Subsequently, Robbins laments thus: “Nothing could be more crippling to a person’s ability to take action than learned helplessness; it is the primary obstacle that prevents us from changing our lives or taking action to help others change theirs.”
We have discovered in this column the power that shapes destiny – decisions – and our decisions about what we focus on, what things mean, and what to do are the decisions that will determine our present and future.
Now it is time to address the power of joint decisions to shape the destiny of our community and our country. What will determine the quality of life for generations to come will be the collective decisions we make today about the challenges of our society.
However, by fixating on everything that is not working, we limit our focus to effects, and we neglect the causes of these challenges. We fail to recognize that it is the small decisions we all make every day that create our destinies. All decisions are followed by consequences. If we make our decisions unconsciously – that is, let other people or other factors in our environment do the thinking for us – and act without at least anticipating the potential effects, then we may be unwittingly perpetuating the problems we dread most. By trying to avoid pain in the short term we often end up making decisions that create pain in the long term.
Probably the most pervasive false belief most of us harbor is the fallacy that only some superhuman act would have the power to turn our problems around. “Nothing could be further from the truth.” Robbins observes. “Life is cumulative; whatever results we are experiencing in our lives are the accumulation of a host of small decisions we have made as individuals, as a family, as a society, and as species.” The success or failure of our lives is usually not the result of one cataclysmic event, or earthshaking decision, although sometimes it may look that way. Rather, our success or failure is determined by the decisions we make and the actions we take every day.
The Ultimate Solution
What do you suppose is the one common element of all the problems facing us today as a nation and as a world? Robbins in answer to his own posited question says that every single one of all the enumerable problems was caused or set in motion by human behavior. Therefore, he surmises, that solution to every one of these problems is to change our behavior. We do not have drug problem; we have a behavior problem. “Teenage pregnancy is not the result of a virus. It is the consequence of a specific behavior. Obviously, sanitation is a behavioral problem. All these problems are the result of actions that people have chosen to take.”
What is great about all this is that once we realize that the root of all problems is behavior (and the decision-making process we use to initiate it), then we know that we are the ones who can change. “The one thing we have absolute control over is our internal world – we decide what things mean and what to do about them – as a result of our decisions, we take actions that impact our external environment.”
There are actions each and every one of us can take in our homes, our businesses, our communities that will initiate a chain of specific positive consequences. With our actions, we communicate our most deeply held values and beliefs, and through the global influence of our mass media, even the simplest actions we take have the power to influence and move people of all societies.
While this sounds invigorating for the human race, you may be asking yourself, “What can one person do to truly make a difference in the world? VIRTUALLY ANYTHING! The only limit to your impact is your imagination and commitment. Robbins observes that history of the world is simply the chronicle of what has happened because of the deeds of small number of ordinary people who have extraordinary levels of commitment to making a difference. “These individuals did little things extraordinarily well. They decided that something must change, that they must be the ones to do it, and that they could do it – and they summoned the courage to persist until they found a way to make it work. These are the men and women we call HEROES.”
Possibly, we all have inborn capacity to be heroic, to take daring, courageous, and noble steps to make life better for others, even when in the short-term it seems to be at our own expense. The capacity to do the right thing, to dare to take a stand and make a difference is within you now. The question is: “When the moment arrives, will you remember you are a hero and selflessly respond in support of those in need?”
So many people want to avoid any hint of a problem or challenge, yet surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character. Many people do not discover their heroic nature until a major difficulty or life threatening situation occurs that they must rise up to the occasion because there is no other choice. The next time you find yourself in a tough spot, decide to make a difference in that situation and take action, no matter how small it seems at the time. Who knows what consequences you will set in motion? Identify yourself as a hero so that you can act like one.
Robbins defines a hero as a person who courageously contributes under even the most trying circumstances; a hero is an individual who acts unselfishly and who demands more from himself or herself than others would expect; a hero is a man or woman who defies adversity by doing what he or she believes is right in spite of fear. A hero moves beyond the “common sense” of the promoters of the status quo. A hero is anyone who aims to contribute, anyone who is willing to set an example, anyone who lives by the truth of his or her convictions. A hero develops strategies to assure his outcome, and persists until they become a reality, changing his approach as necessary and understanding the importance of small actions consistently taken. A hero is not someone who is “perfect,” because none is perfect. We all make mistakes, but that does not invalidate the contributions we make in the course of our lives. “Perfection is not heroism, humanity is.”
There are so many ways that we could contribute. We do not need to wait until we have a grandiose master plan to make a difference. We can have impact in a moment. In doing the smallest things, making what often seem like insignificant decisions. Most heroes are hidden behind what seem like small acts done consistently. You are one thing: the feeling of contribution you would get from that experience would give you a greater sense of fulfillment and joy than anything you have ever felt in your life – greater than any acknowledgement anyone could possibly give you, greater than any amount of money you could possibly earn, greater than any achievement you could possibly have. Meditate on these things!
