People Sometimes.

Brittany Liebenow

31 January 2010

Other Entry (Entry 2)

People Sometimes.

I really don’t understand people sometimes. I am not going to name any names, but there is a certain person that seems to hate success. He has the perfect chance to jumpstart his business and life into something respectable and amazing, but he won’t do it. Why won’t he do it? Because he will not, for the life of him, change what he does. It is either his way or the highway. Unfortunately, life changes and, in order to keep up with life, he, and everyone else, has to change too. A lot of times, change is for the better.

For instance, the game of fencing is constantly morphing as newer people get to higher levels of fencing. In order to be a fencing expert, you have to not only know how to complete certain moves; you have to also know how to adapt your fencing game in order to effectively fence another person. If you can adapt well, you can even get away with knowing fewer moves.

That being said, the ability to adapt is key to success. This certain person will not change his ways for anything. I really do not understand it. Not only does he not agree with any new idea, he gets angry at the presence of something new. At first, I thought that maybe his behavior could be due to the inability to leave his comfort zone. After a while of thinking, I finally came to the correct conclusion: he is just too egotistical to let anything around him become better than him even if he can benefit through the other person’s success.

Egotism is a dangerous thing; it allows a person to become so satisfied with her/himself that she/he loses the desire, and therefore ability, to critique and change minor issues. The problem with this is that, as I have stated before, things change. People change. The world changes. That person changes. Adapting leads to successes and success leads to egotism. The transitive property tells you that, as a result, adapting leads to egotism. It is interesting, then, that egotism leads to the inability to adapt.

How can a successful person avoid egotism? The answer is simple: while staying out of the realm of pessimism, never allow yourself to become completely satisfied with yourself. Always strive to fix the small things, after the big things, which can make you a better person. Also, change, as long as it is not something blatantly bad, is usually a good thing. The more you learn the more you can give.

An important point to consider is also that successes have expiration dates. For instance, if someone wins the Olympics, they cannot just solely rely on their Olympic medal to attract advertising attention forever. Sooner or later, the athlete will have to win something else, donate to something, or do some scouting for advertising opportunities. Like one-hit-wonders, Olympic medal winners could probably live off of the success created at the time of the win, but minimal new success will come unless actions take place. Actions create change, which in turn creates success.