Zero Point — Beginning again

6 Perspectives on forward thinking

The Zero Point

We begin a new year again, Happy New Year!!!

What is a new beginning like?

How should one begin something? I looked at this question from a few different angles,

The start of my year has been calm, and it has felt like a good way to start the year

I was walking down the street yesterday morning to the shop, 7am in a tranquil state

And I saw somebody rushing to put air in their car tyres, in an extreme panic

And from my perspective it seemed hilarious and completely absurd, whereas he

was utterly convinced that his rush was needed, almost life and death

Obviously I have found myself in that state before and can understand

I was enjoying not to be experiencing so much stress in that moment.

It gave me interesting perspective and made me see how absurd a rush looks from a calm state of mind

Really a good insight into management, management of your life, and the pursuit of goals

Perspective 1 — Personal Experience

Everyday is an opportunity for new beginning

At the beginning, i think its normal to experience some anxiety

Its like looking at a blank canvas, staring into a unknown future

You have your projections, which are like past associations, positive and negative, weaved into your

thoughts

they are always there at a new beginning, and it can be difficult to get past these

Then, not necessarily in this order, some anticipation for the challenges

which are going to find you on the new journey

Knowing its best that you face them head on, rather than avoiding them

So there is some to be done preparation for this, pre-empting what is to come

You can also experience some excitement, some enthusiasm about the new experiences ahead

The potential for joy, achievement, progress and clearer perspective

An opportunity awaits to integrate some of the wisdom of the past and implement these lessons

Into the future, to create some new and more optimal outcomes.

What is it you want from a new beginning?

What are you aiming at? And what different ways can we look at this?

Perspective 2 — Ownership/Authorship

The question ‘what you want?’ could be inverted to the question, ‘what you are willing to own?’

I found the question ‘what do you want?’ to be daunting, so i attempted break it down in this way

Ownership makes me think of your house, flat or bedroom

What you have in there, tells you a lot about yourself, your life purpose and motivations

Also the ownership of non material substances

such as status, social attainment or currency and internal achievements,

Such as gaining a new skill, honing a personal attribute or overcoming a fear.

These types of aims are just as important, if not of more so of a priority

Why? Because there are no material things which have the ability to strengthen

Your inner workings, or your spirit, there are material things which can alter your inner state

But strengthening or reinforcing them comes through a practice rather a material object

Perspective 3 — Responsibility

Another way I thought about the question ‘what is it you want?’

Is, ‘what is it you are willing to be responsible for?’

Its a similar metaphor to the ownership

If you own something, you are also responsible for it

You have to be able to look after it, nurture it, maintain it, and meet the demands it places on you

They become a moral obligation to do so. Like taking care of yourself, with daily obligations

I liked this perspective ‘question what you want’, because it was reverse engineering the problem

And looking at it in a wider sense, There are things within this question, basic survival needs

Like housing, Diet and food consumption, quality of relationships, Physical, Mental and spiritual health

Which are built into the question

In order of hierarchy, Forfilling these more fundamental requirements

And to which the quality of which these needs are met

Come before any other long or short term aim or goal

Meaning one cannot come without the other

Perspective 4 — Allignment

During this line of inquiry I saw; in defining an aim or an objective

It was also coming into Alignment with yourself and the rest of the world around you

What does this mean?

Coming into alignment with your culture in which you have been born, to which you are unique

There are things about all of us which make us individual

Not only culture but your personality, your individual character traits, such as openness, intelligence

Creativity, Agreeableness or disagreeableness, orderliness,

Your interests, the things that compel you, or that you desire to practice or learn and engrain into yourself

And also your own past experience’s which have shaped you as an individual

Whether negative or positive, they have contribute to who you are today

And offer something for you to take forward into the future, whether this is a lesson, Wisdom, Knowledge,

Mastery of something, which can contribute to the different things you may choose to pursue

Whats interesting too about past experience, is how it may contribute aesthetically to the future

A style, or a mannerism or a way of doing things, these may be more like surface level manifestations

Or in the way things appear in your reality, the way the look or are designed, something worth considering

These are great things to explore, because they help you identify the things that make you,

And in doing that, owning these things and also celebrating them, feeling that sense of ownership

About these things, not taking them for granted, because they are unique and also worthy.

Owning even some of the darker or less desirable aspects can offer you a lot of energy moving forward

Leaving non of it in the ‘shadows’ so to speak and allowing these things to transform you

This could also be a necessary although less popular part of individual development

When these different factors come into harmony with one another

There seems to be a natural progression, or a set of pathways which present themselves out of this

When you begin with an honest reality, or a clear image about yourself and the reality in which you inhabit

It becomes more obvious the things that you may want to voluntarily aim to overcome or pursue

I would say this is a courageous act, to attempt to see things from this perspective

And also a humbling process,

Perhaps in our culture we are taught or expected to aim for the ‘Gold’ or a ‘Prize’

Which is often personified in the material with the titles of social attainment, Celebrity, Money, Fame high status

Not that any of these things are wrong, these titles are often well earned and deserved, so thats brilliant

when this happens. Problems may occur when some of the personal character developments

mentioned above are missed out or avoided In an attempt to secure or gain these things

Reclaiming yourself in any process, I believe is the biggest prize.

Perpective 5 — Different types of Aims

There are different types of aims

Aims that benefit yourself and yourself alone, could be called selfish aims….

Perhaps, pleasure seeking aims, short term aims,

Aims that only serve one part of the whole, which in the long term become a detriment to the whole

And Aims which benefitted yourself and the rest of the whole

Your friends, family, colleagues, partner, children and the wider society

These seemed to be the ideal aims

Because they have the best outcomes on multiple levels, over time and for the surrounding community

This is well personified in the symbol of the Mandala

An image of a spherical nature, where there is an interconnectedness for the individual parts

Or a symphony or piece of music in which there different parts of the composition

Interplay and interact with each other, creating a dynamic which is reflected in the nature of life

Perspective 6 — Ideal

Another way I looked at this problem was with a perspective shift

If I had everything I thought I wanted, financial security, a family, social status, etc….

And I had attained a level of comfort within my life, what would I aim at then?

What would I do with my time then? What would be your motivation or passion to move forward

And would ‘Forward’ constitute something different

This to me looked like the question of self — definition

The nature of self is always changing, so too then is definition of self.

Its an existential question really, and is the deepest perspective on this question

Because its a fundamental question

What do you fundamentally orient yourself around, if you are a solar system, what is your “Sun”?

Huge question and requires an individual answer

Yet too we have commonalities as humans

Such as we all want or require to feel like we are loved, we want to take care of those we love

We want to try to forfill our potential, We want to inspire and help others

I would say many people feel this way fundamentally

There is aspect of what i do and what I’ve seemed to orient myself around

Is the exploration into new frontiers, I am attracted to unexplored territory

And maybe there is something human about that which we can see in history

In which many pursuits have been about the acquisition of new artistic, political, mental, physical territory

There is something ‘in us’ which is driving us towards the attainment of something new

We seem to aim towards something higher than before

This drive could be seen as an ego drive, or impulse driven, if it is something ‘in us’,

We wouldn’t assume that it is the totality of what we are, yet it is a part of us which aims for ‘more’

This part of us can dominate our behaviour and our thoughts

To the detriment of the ‘whole’, often without our awareness of this happening

And often missing out on what we have already got before us…….

I hope you have enjoyed the read

It has been a broad overview and I explore a wide range of material

I would welcome the feedback, thoughts and comments

Thank you