Podcast - Episode 0264 - The Make Your Mark Myth

12 comments

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  • Jennifer
  • February 6, 2019 at 12:51 am

  I’m really glad you all did a podcast on these issues. The messages of “instant fame and success” are so pernicious now that I recently found myself influenced by them, even though as an INFJ I had thought I was inure to these messages. The wake-up call came when I did a thought exercise where I told myself I would be successful at anything I pursued, as long as I put in the necessary effort and time. I realized that I didn’t know what I wanted to do! Some part of me also wanted to magically get to the end result where I was successful instead of actually doing the work. It made me consider that my attitude was as much the problem as whatever external circumstances I thought were in the way.

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  • Eucklase
  • February 5, 2019 at 10:22 am

  I really like this podcast, because I figured what you guys were saying out by listening to a man who shared his reflections on 3 verses from the Qur’an. I developed this idea that things would instantly come to me without working hard for it and even failing at it. This underneath totally debunked it.

  Chapter Al-Mulk verse 1-3: “Blessed is He in whose hand is dominion, and He is over all things competent – who created death and life to test you [as to] which of you is best in deed – and He is the Exalted in Might, the Forgiving – [And] who created seven heavens in layers. You do not see in the creation of the Most Merciful any inconsistency. So return [your] vision [to the sky]; do you see any breaks?”

  The most striking part of these verses is the third one where He talks about creating seven heavens in layers and you do not see in the creation of the Most Merciful any inconsistency. What this is talking about is how everything in His creation is 1. made with Mercy and Love 2. out of his Mercy and Love He made all things seamless, without any breaks, they are all flowing into one another. That can be within one creation but also looking between creation when you think of entire eco-systems.

  So when you look around you where in nature do you see things happen abruptly or suddenly? Do we see flowers bloom in one day? Do these majestic trees just pop up from one day to the next? Do we grow up instantly do we grow old instantly? Do we see abrupt changes from night and day? Do we see our cells suddenly renewing themselves in one go like we’re shedding skin from one day to the next? Nothing in this life is actually abrupt so this sense of instant gratification is highly unnatural and is bound to cause trouble psychologically. Actually God knowing what He created made these transitional creations transitional out of mercy, because it would harm us if things came to us abruptly I am assuming.

  I am done with my sermon haha, but this shows that many roads can lead to Rome but also that you guys have helped me solidify my beliefs of how unnatural the way I have been living was.

  I think many people need to listen to this podcast so they break free from this idea that we’d all be able to make it instantly and that we need to make it to the top to be someone. We don’t need to be on top, female or not, the top is a place of responsibility not just a bunch of privileges, people who are mistaken about this are going to have a rude wake-up call or are the type to abuse the system. This also ties back to your insights from the Covey competency model: we millenials are unhappy with those in power right now or the current hierarchy (which we don’t want to even admit to existing) but we don’t have the competency to fill the void even if we went ahead and got rid of them. Also this experience we’re having is something generations before us went through so we need to understand that this type of experience is necessary for growth not just personally but collectively. And we can’t skip this phase, because this also is transitional and needs time to mature.