Wanting More Every Day

Want more from yourself each day, not the best.

Often, people want the best out of themselves, never quite living up to such impossible expectations. Expectations are a major source of self-imposed pain and suffering, an important topic of merit. However, here, I wish to transform our mental perspective of ourselves and what we’re capable of accomplishing on the spot.

We start with the aspiration of wanting more from ourselves each day. Aspirations are a great place to begin this transformational process. Aspirations are meaningless without intention. Intention is really an internal moment that consists of an emotional or mental choice of a desired outcome. “I really feel like or think I want to do more today.” Intention is very simple and direct. There’s nothing before or after. It is only an emotional or mental moment in time.

Intention only begins to make an impact when we bring that intention consistently into mind. We can see how intention can easily slip away. We really want (aspiration) a cup of tea. We have every intention of steeping some tea. We even pour the water into the teapot. We even put the teapot on the stove. The water eventually boils, and we pour the boiling water over the dried tea leaves. If we lose our original intention of wanting a cup of tea, we may lose track of that cup of steeping tea. Intention only matters if we consistently keep that intention in the focus of our mind. We may do all the work necessary but never enjoy the fruits of our labor, that cup of intentional tea.

 Throughout the day, we must consistently reacquire the intention of wanting more from ourselves. It can be so easy to let that intention evacuate the building where we work, wonder off while we eat lunch, become lost to and from everywhere we go . . . the list of what we do can be extremely long or very short, but we can all do more with what little we do or how much we do. We might be doing too much, or we could better manage our time. If we can name one activity that cannot be improved upon, why do we even do anything?

We can all want more from ourselves without asking more from others or objects. That’s the key here. We don’t want to increase our dependence. We want to empower ourselves, to see that we are still these amazingly capable creatures that can do more than we ever give ourselves credit of doing. We need only to try. By asking ourselves to be the best, we’re setting ourselves up to be better than every other being on the planet. What are the odds in that? That’s self-abuse on the highest order.

By wanting more from ourselves today, we’re saying, “let’s do this, let’s get started, because  we  know we can!”