Shift an Attitude…. Shift a Life!
Shift an Attitude…. Shift a Life!
by
L.T. Force, Ph.D.
Gerontologist
If I tried to count how many times daily I am notified via social media platforms, emails, virtual banners and advertisements - about strategies, recommendations and insights of: “how best to change my life” - I know I would lose count. I am a big: “LinkedIn User”. I love that platform. As well, I also use the: “Twitter Platform”. I find both of them to be informative, interesting and a vehicle to increase ones network. They also add support to a major belief I have: “It’s all about connections!”. And both LinkedIn and Twitter, although having a different audience-base, both platforms for sure, provide opportunity for: “developing connections”.
As I take a look at my LinkedIn or Twitter feed, I open to daily suggestions, recommendations and insights of how best to: “craft my life”. Some of the information is text base - while some of the information is embedded with pictures and images, some of them are slogan-based or virtual memes. All of them announce suggestions and / or recommendations to follow…. if you are interested in changing your life. Some of the content: “recommends things, practices and behaviors you should give up or let-go of. While others promote activities, behaviors and thoughts that you should incorporate into your life if you are interested in the betterment of your life”. As I read this content, I begin to realize, although difference in content, message and pictures, they have one major similarity. What’s the underlying similarity? Simple, “If you want to change your life….change your attitude”. Yes, simple - but yet complex. As a species, we share both individual differences and commonalities. And the one thing we share, there is an old saying: “we are creatures of habit”. This quote dates back to the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Beasts of Tarzan (1914).
“We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the seeming necessity for schooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist, we fall naturally and easily into the manner and customs which long usage has implanted ineradicably within us.”
I like this reference, as it highlights the “role of habit in the changing of behavior”. There is also reference to the early writings of Aristotle - as he speaks about habit:
“Virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions,” Aristotle said. The writer Will Durant interpreted it thusly: “We are what we repeatedly do… therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.” In other words: Excellence isn't this thing you do one time.
Daily Stoic
Both of these references - focus on the connection between: “change and habit”. And I love one of Aristotle’s favorite quotes (for me it says it all):
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than he who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.”
So what do the social media influencers of today have in common with the writings of Edgar Rice Burrough’s and Aristotle? Simple: “change is possible, but it’s work….but it’s doable. The only person you have to convince….is yourself….and it begins with your change and shift in attitude….everything else follows….and it can begin now”.
Again, as Aristotle stated:
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than he who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.”
The take-away, “want to change your life….change your attitude”.
I write this for both of us….you and me.
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