I never bothered about whether what would come out would be suitable for this or that, but just tried to understand – and it always turned out that understanding was all that mattered.
Alexander Grothendieck
Understanding ourselves objectively can be difficult. Recent events, emotions – they distort our view, making it challenging to separate truth from perception. It takes a lot of energy and it often comes with self-pressure. It can lead you to switch to sheep mode.
If you have a good understanding of psychology, you can use science to make a fairly good, unbiased analysis. Therapy can also be a valuable tool for self-analysis and discovery. There are simpler methods that can help with self-improvement. Let’s use an analogy to help create a framework with which we can analyze some concepts. Let’s take the car for example.
Life is a complex machine. While we may not have the complete owner’s manual, we can gain valuable insights by exploring its components. Let’s try to project the building blocks from life into the building blocks of a car.
Engine (The core of who you are)
This powerhouse represents the core of who you are – your values, your happiness, and the beliefs that drive you forward. It’s the engine that fuels your journey, encompassing things like faith, love, and everything that makes you tick.
Starter (Motivation)
The spark that ignites your drive. One moment it can feel dormant, then suddenly it surges to life, propelling you with unwavering focus.
Fuel (Sleep)
When your tank runs low, it’s time to recharge! Trying to live without enough sleep is trying to drive a car without enough fuel. It can’t work and there is no point in trying.
Chassis (Body)
The foundation that carries you through life. We might spend a lot of time in our heads, but it’s our body that supports us and allows us to experience the world.
Steering system (Emotions)
A powerful force that shapes your path and guides your direction.
Wheels (Survival insincts)
Wheels are your autopilot, keeping you on course. They represent the core survival instincts that keep you functioning.
Brakes (Self care)
Just as crucial as moving forward is knowing when to stop. These are your safety mechanisms, the ability to hit the brakes.
Gearbox (Self-control)
It allows you to manage your speed and navigate challenges. Just like pushing a car’s limits can lead to trouble, so can pushing yourself too hard in life. It’s okay to slow down.
Lights (Intelligence)
Help you see the path ahead and make informed decisions. The car’s lights provide a clear view of the immediate future, but the distant future remains in the dark. Any predictions are almost useless as you don’t know enough about the road and the many other cars.
Paint (Look)
A shiny, well-maintained exterior can turn heads, but it doesn’t tell the whole story! A car with a flawless paint job could have a broken engine, rendering it unreliable and unhappy. A good engine sound will always be more important than the paint.
Windows (Skin)
The windows act as barriers filtering out unwanted things flying in your face (shit happens!).
Software (Intuition)
Deep down, your brain and intuition work tirelessly in the background, analyzing data from your senses and matching them with past experiences. You might not fully understand how these processes work, but they make crucial decisions to keep you safe and healthy.
Sensors (Senses)
Your eyes, ears, nose, taste buds, and touch act like sensors, constantly scanning your surroundings and sending information to your brain. These sensory inputs are essential for your internal compass.
The car service (Money)
The car service represents your money. Just like a poorly maintained car, mismanaging your finances can turn it into a living hell.
Most cars drive easily in a straight line most of the time but if you want to be the best of the best (a race car) you need to get used to constant turns and gear changes. Life rewards the fast and adaptive.
Which two parts are the wisest investment for self-construction? Here’s the key:
Essential and Interconnected: They should be the foundation upon which everything else relies.
Difficult to Replace: Focusing on parts that require a deep understanding ensures a strong core.
The engine is your life philosophy. It’s fueled by your beliefs, passions, and what truly drives you forward. Copying someone else’s engine might get you running, but it won’t be your own unique journey. Your personal software can’t be replaced. While you can learn from others, your intuition is uniquely yours.
Your engine and software are irreplaceable. Nurture them, understand them and work on them throughout your life. Never lose sight of your own core values and principles. They are the essence of your life making it a truly unique and fulfilling ride.
Unlike the car, your brain doesn’t have thousands of different structural parts. It’s made of neurons. The way they are connected is the most important part that makes you the person that you are. Our brains are just different levels of structure.
A major goal of I Grow Younger is to help you build an intuitive understanding of structures in general.
Structure provides a supportive framework, while rigid order can become self-imposed limitation.
The desire to impose order on things might stem from our need to control. But the reality is, complex structures can emerge naturally, as with evolution.
The Game of Self often becomes a struggle because of self-imposed pressure. We chase improvement through rigid structures like schedules and routines. Creating these structures ourselves can lead to anxiety and unnecessary expectations. We want immediate results, and when they don’t come, it feels like failure. This feeling throws us back into a passive state (Sheep Mode), making real change even harder.
If you let go of self-imposed order you’re not giving up on structure. Given enough space and freedom better structures will emerge and they will be more aligned with your nature. As a result of this your wants and needs will align and you will no longer face internal conflicts and doubts that drain your energy.
Order can’t create anything. It can only preserve what already exists. Change means overcoming inertia and only the powerful life forces like love, meaning and chaos are strong enough to do it.
The first step to any personal improvement is to remove expectations.
The chaotic nature of life will trash your order and the more expectations you had beforehand, the more disappointed you will be. Instead, let’s embrace structure. This structure is not something we create – it already exists within us, forming the foundation of our intuition.
Good habits will form without any effort because the foundations (like Self-Love) will be the right ones.
We call this process growing younger and it’s the inspiration behind our self-help system.
Love, creativity and other chaotic aspects of life can exist in beautiful harmony with this structure. The real obstacles to growth are the burdens we create ourselves – pressure and expectations. These mental constraints weigh us down and prevent us from flowing with the natural rhythm of life.
Over time, using your hunter mode moments to face and overcome fears you can loosen the hold of pressure and expectations on your emotions and progressively let go. As you free yourself from these chains, you’ll find a piece of mind and all the space, motivation and energy for cultivating personal growth – the perfect way of growing younger.
