Here’s an interesting question from a reader:
“I recently read the book “the kybalion” the concepts written in it resonated with my personal philosophy. The author did a great deal of talking about the masters of alchemy.
Although as unrealistic their powers were, it intrigued me. My question is, is it wise to pursue it even if it sounds unrealistic, or say, out of my CURRENT scope?
Same goes with any other endeavor, just because it seems unrealistic, like earning a billion dollars for example, I shouldn’t pursue it or I put all of my resources to work in order to achieve it?”
In any large enough goal there will always be moments where you will want to quit. It’s inevitable.
Failures and difficulties are inevitable. No one has a straight line to their (hard enough) goal with no setbacks.
If, when you decide to pursue your goal you’re already starting from a premise of not believing it can be done, then it will be very easy to quit and abandon the whole idea when those setbacks happen.
Why should you continue amidst so many difficulties if you don’t think it can’t be done?
You simply say: “Indeed it can’t be done“. Or, you won’t even have the motivation to keep doing it since it’s so unrealistic so you.
And in our age of distraction, you’ll simply start to pursue other, more attractive and immediate goals.
It’s not like you can say: “maybe I’ll become a great pianist”. No, there must be a strong enough want, desire and intention for you to get there.
Anything that requires effort, requires this strong intention.
Particularly if you say it’s out of your current scope. So why pursue something – especially something HARD – that you don’t really want?
There’s a difference between a goal that looks good and a goal you actually want to accomplish, with its thousands of hours of difficult and grueling practice/work/setbacks/difficulties.
Being a great pianist may seem appealing… who wouldn’t want to be able to play wonderful music to the awe of the whole audience?
But do you want to go through the thousands of hours of practices, lessons, failures and so on?
Not me. I don’t have any inclination toward the piano, so I don’t want to pursue it. I’ll simply admire the great pianists from the audience.
You need to decide what actually is within your scope and follow that. Pursue something that you have an inclination for and you actually believe it’s possible, otherwise you’ll quit at the first sign of difficulties.
