What is personal development, really?
And why is it worth doing, even though it is very challenging?
I woke up in the middle of the night this week, and I wrote this down. In 646 words, I’ll give it to you. It starts with this one key point…
We all want the same thing.
We all want to be happy and to avoid suffering.
This is the first aspect of our common humanity: that we all want the same thing.
We all have the same problem.
We don’t know how to be happy and avoid suffering — how that works, really. So we grasp and cling to some wrong things. And we are averse to and avoid some things that would bring happiness.
Therefore, the problem is that what we do doesn’t bring happiness and avoid suffering. Yet we persist in these misguided behaviors… the clinging and the aversions. We believe this will bring what we desire… despite all evidence to the contrary.
This is the second aspect of our common humanity, that we all have the same problem: distortions in our thinking and feeling that cause suffering.
Personal development is the process of removing distortions.
The solution to the problem (above) is to strip away the distortions. This is not easy, but it is also not complicated.
Personal Development is not what we think it is: it is not fixing our broken selves, and it isn’t adding something that we are missing.
Removing distortions means stripping them away.
We are adding nothing. Instead, we are removing all that we are not.
When our distortions are removed we are all the same.
What do we become when we strip away all that we are not? Nothing.
Instead, what we are and always have been stands revealed. Brilliant. Shining flawlessly.
Our essence is the same.
This is the third aspect of our common humanity: in essence, we are exactly the same. Underneath all that we are not.
The result of true personal development is transformation.
What is the result of true personal development? Transformation: Clear Mind, Open Heart, Strong Spine.
Clear Mind: We see things as they are, straightforwardly, without distortion, with abiding equanimity.
Open Heart: We keep our hearts open all the time, with boundless compassion unfettered by discrimination.
Strong Spine: We know what is right and we take right action, with breathtaking courage and impeccable timing.
This is the fourth aspect of our common humanity: our purpose in life is all the same.
Our purpose is to transform into highly evolved human beings, connected to and acting from our essence, in service of one another, of all beings, of Earth, of Life.
It is the end of the illusion that we are separate, it is the end of separativeness.
The cessation of conditional love. The manifestation of unconditional love.
The Four Aspects of Our Common Humanity — Recapped
- We all want the same thing.
- We all have the same problem.
- We are, in our essence, all the same.
- Our life’s work is the same: reveal that essence.
Personal Development is simply another name for doing that work.
We finally get what we’ve always longed for.
Giving ourselves fully to that work brings more and more happiness, and ultimately ends suffering.
This is what we all want. It’s what we all want for one another. And every one of us can do this.
This is our common humanity. To become the highest expression of a human being. To flourish, and to be brilliant. In essence, to bring heaven to Earth.
That’s personal development, in essence.
That’s why it’s worth doing. In whatever measure and in whatever ways and means calls us.
In this way, in finding and doing our way, we are all different. Though, in essence, the same.
All wanting the same thing: to be happy, and free of suffering.