Category: Considerations – Colin Wright

Life on Our Own Terms

Posted on by jabittan
Author Colin Wright discusses competition and the ways in which we compare ourselves to others in his book Considerations. Throughout his book, he focuses extensively on shifting our perspective and awareness inwards to better understand ourselves, and when it comes to goal setting, he advocates that we do this to ensure our goals are aligning with our inner self. If we don’t turn our reflection inward, we are not leading our life on our own terms and Wright writes, “do you want to measure yourself by the standards of others? Do you want to live your life by a metric determined by those you’re competing against?”

 

The quote above speaks to the ways we compare ourselves to those around us, and how limiting that can be. When we determine whether or not we are successful based on our performance relative to those around us we end up driving in a direction that does not lead us to true growth or the types of growth which would serve us best.  We end up pushing towards some end because it is what others in our group have determined to be desirable. That end may be positive and where we want to go, or it may fall in an area that is not aligned with what truly motivates us.  If we are working towards our goals simply to be more impressive than others or because we want to fit in with those around us, we will not be happy with the results we achieve.

 

Furthermore, when we are driving and competing with those around us we fail to see the larger picture.  Wright continues his explanation in Considerations by using the analogy of a footrace.  If you run a race and win, then you are now regarded as the fastest of that group who happened to be running on that day in that race.  You may achieve a goal in winning a race, but you may also be a big fish in a small pond, and relative to other runners in  the community you may  not be performing at a high level. Competing and winning in small groups may boost the ego, but it can also be a false feeling of success.

 

What Wright is establishing in his quote and his running analogy is the idea that success is not determined by the groups we are associated with and our performance in those groups. Driving towards success as defined by others does not help us reach places where we will find happiness and comfort. The way we reach a real level of success is by focusing on growth and learning how we can move ourselves forward in a positive direction that aligns with the inner motivations which we understand through deep self-reflection.

How Being Outraged Can Boost Our Self Esteem

Posted on by jabittan
Throughout his book Considerations, author Colin Wright reflects on ideas that seem to align with stoicism and his book, which is a collection of essays on various daily topics, connects with many themes from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.  A common idea between the two works is the thought of self awareness, self-control, and understanding that you do not understand everyone’s perspectives and thoughts.  When writing about our anger and the way we occasionally show our passion through outrage Wright states:

 

“On a personal level, outrage makes us feel superior.  By becoming indignant, we’re drawing a line in the sand and declaring ourselves to be on the right side of a given issue.  We’re saying, “How horrible this situation is, and how capable I am of declaring right and wrong, and passing judgment on those involved!””

 

Wright continues to explain that this type of outrage is nothing more than a self esteem boost for ourselves because it raises us along a slope of moral righteousness from which we are able to display and pronounce our superiority over those in the ‘wrong’ camp. Our ranting and explosive attitudes release energy and captivate the attention of others, giving us an additional boost by holding people’s attention.  As this continues, being right or wrong does not matter, and we simply become outraged on moral issues so that we can continue to gain an audience and flatter ourselves. The more people pay attention to an outraged individual, whether they agree with them or just want to see someone bellowing out their beliefs, the more that individual feels supported.

 

I think that both Aurelius and Wright would argue that it is better to turn ourselves inside and reflect on that which makes us irate before making a public display of our feelings. By better understanding whatever it is, we can better react to it, and perhaps understand other perspectives surrounding that which angered us. Aurelius would certainly argue that nothing should push an individual to the point of outrage, since it is likely outside our control and influence, and since the thing itself likely does not make us any worse off. Both Wright and Aurelius would understand that the best way to handle or change that which has angered us would be to use our anger in a moderate manner by taking positive steps to improve the world around us by changing that which we can control.  Anger is a normal human emotion and one that can motivate us and push us to action in many positive ways, but using anger to increase ones platform does not help us grow or improve society. When we use anger to place ourselves on the moral high ground, we divide our society and polarize the thoughts at hand.

Living Well

Posted on by jabittan
In his book Considerations author Colin Wright focuses on growth and success and writes, “maybe focusing on growth — or the measurement of it — is missing the point of living well.” This quote speaks to me about the importance of not focusing on others and worrying about how we compare to others.  When we spend time worrying about others, what they achieve, what they drive, and how fancy their job title is, we either feel inadequate or we overinflated our ego.  What Wright is arguing is that all of these comparisons between us and our neighbors, co-workers, peers, and the other people in the grocery line distract us from focusing on what is truly important in life. At a more profound level, Wright’s quote also speaks about the importance of self awareness, and what we should use self awareness for.  Rather than analyzing ourselves and critically analyzing our level of growth, his quote seems to show that we would be better suited by finding ways to enjoy life and lead a positive life rather than living with a focus on constant growth. In this way it is as though the best way to growth is through an oblique path as opposed to a direct tangent.

 

Wright’s idea feels quite stoic to me and reminds me of Marcus Aurelius in many ways. I am currently working through Meditations and 2,000 years ago Aurelius was encouraging us to focus inwards on ourselves and not be tempted by desire for the things that others have which we do not.  When we are not worried about obtaining the same things that our neighbors have and when we do not spend all our time trying to impress others, we can connect with ourselves in a meaningful way, and move in a direction which fuels us for more positive reasons.

 

I think that both Wright and Aurelius would admit that there is a difficult balance to be maintained when it comes to self awareness and growth.  In previous posts I have written that establishing goals based around growth is a more effective way to guide ones life, but at the same time, focusing on growth as opposed to focusing on living a well rounded and meaningful life still will not guide an individual in the best possible direction. We are still measuring ourselves and making comparisons between our current self and past self along with others. Focusing on these changes and gaging whether or not they are the changes we want or expect of ourselves does not provide the meaning to our life that we should desire.

Successful Growth

Posted on by jabittan
While reading Colin Wright’s Considerations, I came across a short  sentence that read, “there’s no commonly accepted ranking system, and all a person has is their own interpretation of movement, their own ideas about how much they’ve grown.” Originally I had just highlighted the middle section of the sentence about our own interpretations of growth, and I had left myself a note reading, “growth is naturally movement.” In isolation this sentence speaks to me about our constant evolution through life, and the lenses through which we judge our changes.  We see our own growth in a way that is different from the way others see our growth, and in the end, all that matters for us is our interpretation of our personal changes and growth.

 

Placed back in the context of Wright’s book, the quote speaks to the difficulty of comparing people and success.  We all seem to want to grow toward a future that is more successful monetarily, but Wright argues that judging ourselves and others based on our income is a flawed way of gaging success.  He writes that we often use awards, recognition, and accolades to judge our value and growth, but the sentence above shows that there is no way to truly equalize and compare our growth and success.

 

When I look at myself and where I am from a standpoint of growth and movement, from the changes and evolutions I have experienced to what has remained constant or become stronger in my life, I do feel very successful. I can examine the movement in my life and be proud of the changes I have gone through even though I do not have the most impressive salary, have not won many awards, and am not a well known public figure.  Wright would argue that I am heading down a useful path where I understand my own interpretation of movement in my life, which will allow me to feel positive about myself as I direct my growth in a direction that aligns with who I truly am and want to be. Chasing growth in certain areas because it is impressive to others would likely not move me in a direction that aligned so well with my internal interpretations of the world.

Our Default Measurement of Success

Posted on by jabittan
Through my journey of self awareness and growth I have had to adjust my definition of success many times. As I have had new opportunities and as I have thoroughly reflected on myself and others it has been crucial for me to reconsider what success looks like. In his book Considerations Colin Wright examines the same thoughts and feelings that I have worked through. “In the post-Industrial Revolution world, money has become the default unit of measurement for growth and success and personal evolution.”

Wright explains that we fall back on income as a way of objectively measuring ourselves relative to others because it is a simple and common unit between everyone.  How much money we make, however, is not the greatest measurement to determine success, growth, and the quality of ones life. It is easy to imagine that you have moved forward in a positive direction by increasing your income, but it is possible that the direction in which you moved is limiting you in other ways: creativity, spending time with family, giving back, and maintaining social connections could be limited as one makes sacrifices to obtain more money.

Continuing on, Wright states that using money to judge the success of others is a mistake because not all of us shoot for increased wealth as our main goal. It is hard to judge ourself against others if we define success as a certain income level, the ability to purchase a certain car, or the size of the home we can afford, when those we judge ourselves against view success as increased knowledge, increased visibility in their field, or happiness in their relationships at home. Money also is a terrible way to judge our success because of the vast differences in our backgrounds and family histories.  If having a lot of money is our measure of success, then many people are successful by default thanks to a fortunate birth.

Comparing ourselves to others based on money sets us up for frustration and disappointment. Not having the best car, the biggest home, and the biggest pay check can frustrate us and make us feel inadequate. When we change success to align with our internal values and ideas we begin to work toward better goals. Rather than comparing ourselves based on an external measure that we don’t have direct control over, we begin to judge ourselves based on value that we create for areas of our life that have true meaning.  This means that we will not pursue the car we cannot afford or the house that is too large and we wont flaunt our financial success. Rather than pressuring ourselves into certain boxes, when we remove money from success, we are able to strive toward goals that help us develop in meaningful ways.

We Are All Trying To Reach The Best Places

Posted on by jabittan
In his book Considerations, author Colin Wright addresses our conflicts over differing ideas and everyone’s struggle to make their life meaningful.  In particular Wright considers the way we act towards others who do not share our same beliefs and fight for ideas that we think are wrong. “Every one of us is building the best life we possibly can for ourselves.  We’re all just working from different sets of instructions.” The instructions Wright addresses are our varying experiences and backgrounds along with the education and training we have received.

 

What I like about this quote is that it addresses the fact that so many of us seem to act in ways or hold personal philosophies that don’t align and are unable to be merged with those of others.  When we all start trying to force our viewpoints and ideas on the world without considering others, then the conflicts between our viewpoints become major conflicts between each other.  What Wright would argue for is an increased effort to understand the views of others and the willingness to allow our views to change. When we become entrenched in our ideas and refuse to listen to the thoughts of others we risk alienating our fellow citizens by creating fractures in our communities and groups.

 

What I find challenging with this quote is relating it back to people around me who do not strive to deeply understand the world around them.  Those without self awareness, who do not strive to think critically about the world and society, and who do not spend time learning and driving themselves to grow can really grate on me in their conversations.  When I listen to people who have ideas and opinions that are fundamentally flawed by being one sided or simply a rehash of a major media story, I have trouble giving their arguments my full attention and respect. I believe that we are at a point where everyone feels entitled to an opinion and a political or social voice, but those privileges should be earned through study and self awareness, not through access to media and technology.

 

I believe that Wright would not discount the thoughts and ideas of others simply because their views were naive and not fully informed. For him, those individuals would be following and explaining their own truths and understanings about the world. He would probably encourage others to become more aware and thoughtful of the world by politely inviting them into a more considerate space.

The End Goals of our Goals

Posted on by jabittan
Colin Wright focuses on self awareness throughout his book Considerations and he turns that inward focus toward our goals and desires for life.  Specifically he writes about bucket list items and goals we aspire to reach.  What Wright explains is that we often set up goals with the hopes of impressing other people. Our goals are chosen not because we actually want to achieve them or because we desire the things that come with reaching that goal, but instead we choose our goals based on how impressive they sound or how they will make us look relative to our peers. When comparing actual goals to bucket list items Wright states, “…rather than cataloging goals we actually have aspirations to achieve, we list things that are very impressive and intense-sounding for the sake of being associated with those types of activities.” What Wright is establishing is the idea that we are not focusing on ourselves in goal setting, but what others want or expect from us.

 

Wright continues to explain the difference between choosing goals that are for yourself rather than for others and ends this chapter in his book with the following, “in short, make sure your goals are for you, not for others’ perception of your. This applies to all goals, not just those on some sort of bucket list.”

 

I want to share this quote, or perhaps the entire section of Wright’s book, with every high school and college student in the country. So often it is easy to have expectations in your mind about what success is, but that vision of success does not always align with who you truly are, and what you truly desire.  Pushing towards success by achieving what others have decided is a worthy definition of success, as opposed to understanding and creating your own definition of success, can lead you down paths that are not enjoyable and do not lead to happiness.

 

For me, a major challenge throughout college was developing the self awareness to understand what visions of success I had and where those visions came from.  Growing up watching Top Gear had build success in my mind as a fancy sports car, and growing up in a nice house gave me certain expectations for how success translated into a home.  Evaluating myself and what my definition of success was allowed me to understand what was important in life and what was not. Once I decided that I did not need to achieve a certain monetary level of success, drive sports cars, or live in a giant house, much of the stress I felt melted away.  It is difficult to look inward and understand what sets the foundation for the goals we have, and it is even more difficult to begin to develop those goals on our own without feeling the pressure of what society and family expect from us.

Testing Our Assumptions

Posted on by jabittan
As I have worked on self awareness and worked to be a more understanding person capable of seeing the world from multiple perspectives, I have become more aware of my first impressions and snap judgments of other people. An important first step in becoming a more integrated person is recognizing the impulse thoughts we have about others and understanding where those thoughts come from.  Colin Wright in his book Considerations addresses this idea and drives it to an even deeper level. He examines the structure of the brain and out thoughts to understand why we have developed these impulse thoughts, and he challenges everyone to recognize and push back against these often times hidden beliefs (emphasis mine):

 

“Testing our assumptions is an excellent way to see the potential in things and people we wouldn’t otherwise stop to notice.  A person with a black plastic trash bag could be a lot of things, and it’s worth considering more than just your first impression if you intend to be an active participant in your environment, rather than just a passive experiencer.”

 

When I first started working on mindfulness and recognizing my thoughts about others, including my immediate reactions, I constantly felt discouraged by my negative reaction to people of other races or who appeared to be homeless or in poverty.  I would scold myself for having a negative initial judgement, and then worry that my initial thoughts bled over to my outward attitude and behavior.  What Wright explains in his book is that these types of instant reactions are evolutionary left overs from a time when we needed to make assumptions about our environment and react quickly to avoid wild animals that could kill and eat us.  Our quick reactions, memory, and pattern recognition saved our ancestors, but now those same traits get in our way.  The best approach to improve our behavior is to recognize these thoughts and accept that we make poor initial judgments. Once we identify our behavior we can work to challenge and change our reactions.

 

I am particularly struck by the last part of Wright’s quote.  It shows that in order to be fully integrated with our environment and to find real meaning through our impact in the world we must challenge our beliefs to push ourselves to grow and have stronger interactions and relationships with everyone in society. The more we challenge our knee-jerk reactions and the more we push ourselves to be involved with those who we normally would not interact with, the more we will be able to connect with the world. Those new connections will shape us and push us to a point where we no longer need to worry about a negative emotion being noticed by people who are different from us.

Crossing Finish Lines

Posted on by jabittan
A difficult challenge on my journey has been shifting ideas, focuses, and goals.  I begin working towards something or I get an idea in my head, but I seem to often times end up moving in a different direction several months later. While maintaining a vision and having the grit to see it through is important, Colin Wright in his book Considerations addresses my concern in a direct way.

 

“Live your life and allow your goals and priorities to grow as you grow.  Otherwise you may find yourself spending all your time running toward a finish line you have no interest in crossing, for no better reason than you told yourself you would cross it.”

 

When I look at the ideas and goals I am working towards and ask myself why I am pursuing these goals, I can better understand the motivation and reason for my efforts. If there does not seem to be a meaningful benefit in achieving that goal, then I can move on and allow that goal to shift with me or fall by the wayside.  Wright’s quote from above shows that reevaluating our goals is a natural progress of life, and he explains that cultivating self-awareness  will help you see which goals can be shifted and which ones should be maintained.

 

I have often been afraid of reaching a point where I was not happy with what I achieved, what my daily regimen was like, or finding out that the goal I worked for was not as sweet as I had imagined. What Wright’s quote says to me is that pursuing growth is the most important thing we can do in our life. Fearing that we will end up in a place we dislike should not stop us from looking for the right path. We can begin down a path and decide that it is not right for us, but if we change direction we must look for a path that offers growth that is more aligned with who we are.

Reconsider

Posted on by jabittan
One of the ideas I loved in Colin Wright’s book Considerations is his approach to beliefs and belief systems.  Wright emphasizes awareness and flexibility in our beliefs, and encourages us to understand the assumptions and question we we unquestioningly take to be true.  For him, having a belief system that is locked in and unchanging can be damaging as it does not allow you to grow or let your viewpoint evolve.  In his book, the author writes about the value in actively challenging your beliefs and aligning your thoughts with things you learn as your perspectives grow.

 

Wright writes, “Only by establishing a habit of checking your own ideas can you be certain that at any given moment you’re making decisions based on the most up-to-date set of personal beliefs available.” This quote resonates with me because it aims right at self-awareness, which has been a major focus on mine the last few years. By focusing in on yourself and working to truly understand your thoughts you can find areas where you have opportunities to grow and become a better person. What Wright discusses in his quote is the importance of practicing awareness and making sure your decisions and actions align with your personal beliefs. Without a sense of awareness it is hard to develop a personal philosophy and act in a way that lives out that philosophy.

 

However, Wright is not just encouraging us to build a personal philosophy and stick to it as a rigid backboard for our life. In my previous blog post, “Valuable Possessions” I wrote about Wright’s belief that a personal philosophy that allows change and flexibility offers greater value to the individual.  Wright argues that we should constantly look for more information from valuable sources to learn and gain new perspectives. Through this process it is expected that we will begin to see the world in new ways, and as we take in more information we must allow our thoughts to shift so that we can grow. “There’s never a bad time to reconsider what you know to be true. Wright states, “No belief should be safe from your investigation, and all should be regularly revisited.” By continually pushing ourselves to challenge entrenched ideas, accepting that we can change and develop new viewpoints, and practicing self awareness, we can grow and develop in ways that make us more open and engaged in the world around us.