Live Like A Baby, Think Like A Wise Man
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
For over 2000 years, Chinese philosophers emphasized the importance of making small steps in life. Nowadays, we are taught to think big, holistically. So who’s right? Shouldn’t we adjust to our fast-paced environment and ignore the advice? Should we maybe be fast, act fast, expect fast?
Maybe not
There is a system, that I’m going to introduce here.
I call it “Live like a baby, think like a wise man”, and I put it simply into 3 rules. The system will require you to revive the skills you probably lost from the time you were a baby, and nurture the skills of a wise man. It works for me, possibly it will work for you as well.
Here we go …
1. Dream and visualize
Is this the baby or the wise man? You could say it’s mostly a baby thing. Dreaming big is not an adult’s thing. People tell you you have to be realistic, so you cut that big proportion out of the dream, and settle for less than you want. You think this is what a wise man would do. The experience taught you, it’s mostly failure and few wins in life, so you give up.
Is it then bad to dream big? Or is it bad to dream small?
It could be bad to not dream. Imagination is part of human nature, it’s what made us conquer space, build airplanes, connect the world. You can walk without a destination, but it’s hard to live without one. Settling for what’s expected is not the same as settling for what you want. Accept that you might have big dreams and you might not reach them, and that does not make dreaming bad.
It’s not the achievement that matters, but the process.
This process is your life.
Mentally practice your dream. As a chess player, I used to practice this exercise before the game. I lacked self-confidence, and this exercise let me focus on my goal, instead of contemplating my feelings. Once I knew my goal was to win, my moves on the board were showing it. Instead of defending, I was attacking, I was going for the win.
2. Think of what you can do TODAY
Thinking big is associated with the future. We are creatures that are programmed to predict. At the end of the day, we have to survive. Unfortunately, during evolution, our minds became too “intelligent”, and with that, we increased our capacity to think far more ahead. That is not automatically an advantage.
If you need to strategize, use your predictive power, if you need to act, you need a more simple algorithm. Thinking of what you can do today, can be a good start. See the big picture, but walk with small steps toward it. Small means meeting failure, achieving consistency, growth. When making small steps, you get to know your surroundings and potential threats on the way. Big leaps make you blind to failure. You might have missed so many lessons on the way that would become indispensable later.
3. If you can be easy on yourself, be.
When making big steps, you have to take big decisions. This is consuming, both on your mental and self-esteem capacity. We forget that our minds’ energy fluctuates and it’s not readily available. Especially, our self-esteem is the hardest to feed. Once accidentally wounded, it takes a chunk of time to recuperate it. Making small steps is going to be easier on your mental well-being.
Small steps mean more actions, but also easier decisions. If you want to write a novel, and you think about writing 500 pages, it’s hard to visualize it mentally. It’s easier to mentally visualize finishing one page. Be easy. Action prefers simplicity.
Live like a baby.
Then think like a wise man.
Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
