Scott Free Thinking

When all of us think back to the time we were young and remember how different we were then as compared to now, it can be a bit shocking. Myself? I had relatively clear cut dreams, and an unwavering desire to achieve those dreams. Much of the time, we can lose the drive to pursue the fulfillment of those dreams and for them to come true. Why does this so often happen? Well, I think part of the problem is our lack of information. Decisions are always based on information we already have, whether we realize it or not, and after all - who would want to make a decision based on something you’ve never done or off of a gut feeling? Sometimes you might imagine it’s a good idea, but especially with major decisions, like maybe what house you’re going to buy, what career you’re going to choose, the entire thing can be unnerving. So, of course, we run into what usually is seen as failure. We hit brick walls. Things go wrong. The image we had of how we were going to get to our life is paradise is shattered into pieces by event after event until sooner or later you have to come to the realization that you’re an adult already, and you need to deal with it.

But should we dismiss our dreams so quickly? Should we throw aside what our hearts desired so early just for the fact that things did not happen exactly the way that we intended them to? We certainly should not! Sometimes there is also another way of looking at the entire situation, and that can be looking at it from the angle that the path you took at one time worked so well, and the path you’re taking now is attempting to repeat the past, but considering that the times have changed - the same technique may or may not work so well. Sometimes, the same attempt at something that worked better than anything before can prove to not work at all later on!

When I think back at the years of life that I have already had, and it certainly has not been that much, it still has been vast, diverse, and amazing in scope. When I think about the idea that within 6 years, such a large amount of occurrences has happened, it stuns me to think that just back then I was only 12 years old! It blows my mind. Within this amount of time, I’ve been in three long term relationships with different girls that I have all deeply cared for, I’ve started my own company, graduated high school, read hundreds of books, written a book myself and books worth of other writings, have gotten good at art and then seen my talent drop down as I let it go, and so much more. The entire field of experience is just downright indescribable. And would I have been able to guess that the way I am now is the way that I had expected myself to be that 6 years ago? There is one thing I have noticed throughout all of this time, though.

6 years ago, I had an image in my mind of what I was going to look like several years down the line. I had a ‘package’ put together mentally of the kind of personality I was going to have, and also the kind of things that I was going to accomplish. Some of those things never got accomplished the way I would have fantasized about, but there are of course other things that have happened, and I was thrilled to achieve them. I almost expected myself not to achieve the prospect of starting my own company, but it has happened, and quite unexpectedly - everything that goes with it. If you want the car, you’d better have the gasoline to run it. Some of it you find you are not so thrilled about, because you discover so many of the other things that are paired with it. Still, when you can look back on your life and see how your accomplishments have happened as you once saw fit, you should not stop yourself from giving yourself credit. Whether it has everything that you expected or not you cannot stop the fact that you really did achieve it the way you had envisioned.

And that’s really the entire idea. You want to imagine where you’re going, without necessarily worrying about how it is that you’re going to get there. However it happens, you should certainly cherish the experience, but never forget that the path to where ever it is you’re going is sub par to where it is you currently are, and where it is you’re currently going. This can kind of seem contradictory to “it’s not how far you’ve gotten in life, but how you’ve gotten there that matters.” But really, I do not believe these two ideas are contradicting in any way, because either way you look at it, the focus is where you are going. ‘How far’ is a subjective term that must be looked at with open arms and creative observation.

The full creation of your identity at your current state is created by a wide range of factors. Who you are is made up by your genetics, your past experiences, the people you currently know, your current environment, your current viewpoint, and lastly your visual appearance. The interesting thing about your appearance, however, is how your appearance is created. Facial features, as you grew up, were largely determined by how your body was developing. Here is where it gets interesting.

Your face conveys a great deal of information to the sea of people that surround you. It conveys your current emotions, of course, but it also presents an image by association in the mind’s of others as to who you are. The eyebrows, the jaw line, the hair color, length, and style, the curvature of the nose, and so much more completely conveys an impression of your personality that has been, in part, created by your own perspective as well as the perspective of others.

When doctors are creating medication, they often create two different groups to test how effective the medicine will actually work. One group is given the actual medicine under the test, as the experimental group. The other group is given a fake medicine, but is told it is the real medicine, and this is the control group by which to compare the experimental results. What is interesting is that often times the placebo, or fake medicine, will work anywhere from 30%-35% as well as the actual medicine(can you say holy water?). What is essentially means, in physical and medical terms, is that we have the innate ability to completely alter our biological make up. If the affect of a belief can have that much of a drastic impact on our cells, imagine what kind of impact a positive or negative mentality of any kind for any subject will have.

Perhaps it is not what you eat that will determine you weight, maybe it is more of how you feel or think about eating. How do you perceive the food you are eating to benefit you? How do you perceive your ability to accomplish your goals, to make your dreams come true, or to attain your desires? This scientifically measured aspect of the affect consciousness has on physicality is solid evidence that how we look in our facial features and the rest of our bodies is, at least in part, determined by our thoughts.

Since the age of 12, my physical build has changed, my facial features have been altered drastically, and not by any unnatural events. While I see myself as very much the same, my girlfriend Kim recently remarked to me that she sees virtually nothing of my childhood self in my current appearance, and others have made similar claims. Why is it that I can see myself as so much the same being while others are perceiving me as changing so dramatically? Part of it is the fact that I never leave this body I’m in, of course, and part of it is the simple idea that I am, well, me. But another very important part of it could be the idea that for the past 6 years, I have been continuously imagining myself to be a particular way, and have seen my future as coming out in a very specific sort of fashion to very closely resembles where it is I am now.

As human beings, we are always having constant learning experiences, and learning is just simply part of existence, as far as I can tell. Since we are always learning, we should always know that things will not likely go as we expected them, because we were acting on knowledge that at a future time, is no doubt going to be out of date. Why is it, then, that so many people fret over the events that come in front of them and intercept their original expectations? Honestly, I really do not believe people know this simple truth, because if they did we likely would not see so many reacting the way that they do. But of course, it is happening everywhere.

Maybe you could be the first to step outside the box and take this knowledge with you. “There is no failure, only feedback.”