Shaping Ourselves - Part 1 - Aim

We all start with a relatively poor ability to aim in a strategic sense, that is, picking the best opportunities. We get better at aiming only with practice. As one of the four necessary ingredients for advancing our position, aim uses our present to focus on our future. Choosing the best opportunity, however, has a secondary purpose. It strengthens our character to withstand setbacks.

We build our characters by the choices we make. The pathways we choose in exploring our world create the pathways in our brains. The imaginings of our conscious minds reshape our unconscious minds to see more possibilities. Choosing the more challenging paths in life shapes our characters to meet not only more difficult challenges but also to face unavoidable difficulties of living. We choose to become habituated to the corisol of fear or the dopamine of facing challenges.

Aiming focuses on the present, where something is now, but it also focuses on the future, where something will be tomorrow. Our goal is to translate our current desires into future reality. The analogy of hunting is helpful here. When we hunt for food and must aim our weapon, we only focus on animals that are good to eat. We focus on the prey that is there now for the meal we wanted to have tomorrow. We cannot focus, however, on some ideal meal. We are limited to what is here now. Ourfocus on the future is especially clear when hunting fast animals, like birds. We must aim, not at where we see themnow, but where we imagine their path wiill take them. In strategy, we aim at the future, focusing on the reaction we hope to elicit from others.

The Past, Present, and Future