Tom was
on his weekly walk with his mentor, Dwyer, when he made the comment that he
didn’t want to work on developing himself anymore.
They were
walking past a river, when Tom said, “Every week you tell me to learn something
or grow in a particular area. To be frank, I’m a bit sick of it and don’t want
to change any more. Why can’t I just stay the way I am? Isn’t that good
enough?”
Dwyer
looked in the river and pointed out a dead fish. “Tell me Tom, what is that
over there?” “It’s a dead fish, but what has that got to do with me?” “What’s
the fish doing?” “It’s floating downstream with the current, but what has that
got to do with me?”
“But the
fish is dead, how can it be moving?” asked the mentor, ignoring his protegé’s
frustration. “It’s moving because the river is moving, but what has that got to
do with me?” he asked again in exasperation. Dwyer turned to the young man and
said, “Life is like the river. It’s always changing and always moving.
Some
people don’t want to change, but the reality of life is that they are changing,
just not in a way that they control. If you choose to resist developing
yourself, your skills will atrophy, your attitude will become more negative and
you will become less useful to the world. You may think that you’re not
changing, but everyone else will notice the difference.
So, you
have a choice, you can take action to control the change that you experience,
or you can become a victim of the current, being changed in subtle ways that
will inevitably impact your future negatively. But you need to remember that
you can’t choose to not change, because change is inevitable. You can only
choose to be a dead fish floating along or a live fish in control of its
destination.” Tom nodded his head in disappointment, because he knew that his mentor
was right.
He had seen it in his own father who had
stopped learning and growing many years ago and was now a shell of the man that
he used to be. Determined not to become like his dad, he returned home from the
walk and resolved himself to do all that he could to continue his process of
continued learning.
What
about you?
Do you resist personal growth and in doing so
become a dead fish? Or are you focused and determined to continue the
challenging and never-ending path of personal development?...
Source: more.ng
Source: more.ng
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