OPINIONS: Progress – Challenges – Inadequacies, by Chris Fogg

Photo by Jer Kunz on Flickr

Here's latest piece sent in by Chris Fogg.

Most of us I believe, present ourselves with challenges at certain times in our lives.

Why?

I think it’s because we have an innate need to progress. We are never completely satisfied with our present, we always wish to strive for something better. Surely that’s why we are no longer apes but have become Human Beings? Even in monkeys, chimpanzees for example, they find that curiosity stimulates them to play and learn.

Why are they still monkeys?

Maybe because they have never been presented regularly enough with things to arouse their curiosity through contact with man – essentially they have always remained in the same environment. So they have not progressed, even if they may have the intelligence to do so. The difference is that we in our world are continually faced with something new in our experience and we can choose to face the challenge or not.

Facing challenges is necessary if you want to progress.

The problem for us Human Beings is that we don’t find it easy to face up to our inadequacies – monkeys are not gifted with a sense of shame as we are – failing with our expectations of ourselves  or failing in the eyes of others and, what we may believe, are their expectations of us.

Inadequacies that you fear you may have – may not actually exist.

Children learn more quickly than adults – they are too young to know what shame is and have no expectations of themselves, and don’t know that others have expectations of them.

So – smile – be like a child – learn from them – don’t worry about inadequacies and failure – face the challenge – enjoy it and so try to progress. And if you can - turn your progress into something that can help others to progress too.