It is interesting how action movies display superhuman strength, x-ray vision, the ability to fly, to run faster than the eye can see as super human abilities.
While these action flicks satisfy the urge to have more drama in our lives, is their portrayal of those fictional superhuman characteristics a distraction, a misdirection, an altered importance that takes our eye off where we should be looking?
When I look around me, what I see observe is that most people do not have any idea of their basic purpose in life, spend more time planning an annual vacation than they do planning their life, pay scant attention to regular exercise or an optimum diet and are spending more time on distractions than on living a fully real and authentic life.
Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
This is sad.
What if there were a simple, effective way to alter this situation?
What if there were a way to move a person from living a life of quiet desperation to a level of calm, satisfied competence?
It has been noted by more than one person that you get that on which you put your attention. Well, let me suggest you put your attention on some abilities I see broadly lacking that if you put your attention on and mastered, would make you appear to others like a super hero masquerading as an ordinary human being in street clothes!
What are these abilities?
Being fully present in the here and now without having your attention dragged back in time or elsewhere is a super power.
Confront and integrity (the willingness and ability to see what is really there, not what you think is there or what you want to be there or what you are told is there) are super powers.
Having the confidence to clearly communicate what you wish to is a super power.
The ability to learn and skillfully apply that newly acquired data is a super power.
Competence, the ability to start, continue and fully complete a task without distraction or error, quickly, efficiently and effectively, is a superpower.
Loyalty is a super power.
Honesty and truthfulness (the ability to say what you think should be said despite potential negative consequences) is a super power.
Persistence is a super power.
Consistency is a super power.
Responsibility is a super power.
Self-discipline is a super power.
The ability to envisage a future goal, to plan the steps necessary to attain it, then to perform them in sequence until you attain the desired result is a super power.
The ability to acknowledge something you did was wrong, to rectify it and thereafter change your operating basis is a super power.
These are not fictional powers, they are genuine, real super powers for they enable production at a much higher level and the enjoyment of a far more satisfying life.
If you have read this far then you probably have many or all of the above super powers, to a greater or lessor degree.
Let’s look at what would happen if one by one, you took each of these abilities as something to work on in yourself, and, improve your ability to do it for a week before moving on to the next one.
You would progressively improve your morale, your self-confidence, your happiness, your self-respect and your ability to get things done.
This will set an example to others that some will want to emulate.
Imagine what would happen if enough people did this? If a civilization is the aggregate of the basic building blocks, the individuals in it, what would happen to a civilization if all the individuals in it had the above super powers to a high level?
Tom Grimshaw
P.S. If, while improving your super powers, you hit a brick wall or are not progressing as quickly as you would like, reach out to me.
