Obviously, understanding your own cognition is a marvelous tool. We each approach life according to the particular Scope and Objective of our unique Type Specialization, so it’s immeasurably empowering to know how that works. The more we understand what our mind is already trying to do, the better we can gain what we’ve always been after, the more we can avoid the pitfalls that have always nagged us, and the more fully ourselves we can always be.
In this culture where some make flippant declarations about “human nature” being unavoidably corrupt, jealous, or self-destructive, it’s powerful to understand how our minds really work. We don’t have to feel at the mercy of Type Angsts or other weaknesses, when we know where they come from and how to heal them. We don’t have to repeatedly feel like the person we see in the mirror isn’t quite up to the caliber of the person we’d like to be in our secret hearts. We don’t have to constantly struggle for elusive fulfillment, success, and lasting joy, when we learn how to get out of our own way in pursuit of what we’ve always really wanted all along.
We can each be a unique, one-of-a-kind version of our own cognition’s Type Hero. These days, most people roll their eyes at the idea of real heroism. It’s just not realistic, not practical. We’re so often trapped in occupying ourselves with the gray repetition of maintaining the things we care about, and so optimism bows the knee to routine. Hope struggles against the harsh verdicts of experience.
But when your car won’t start, you can throw up your hands in surrender and accept that maybe it was never meant to run in the first place, or you can learn how it works and find out how to fix the problem. When life doesn’t match up with what we really feel it can and should be, we can declare that it was never meant to be that great anyway, or we can learn how it works and find out how to fix the problems. You are far more complex than any car, yet maybe the simplistic, eager dreams of childhood weren’t so far off. Maybe as you learn to tune your own cognitive engine, you can slowly grow to attain everything your deepest desires have always reached for.
You can be a hero, and this world certainly needs heroes. But what does a real-life hero look like? Real heroes are usually not flashy, not famous, and certainly heroes aren’t afraid to work tirelessly to do what needs to be done while receiving little or no recognition. It’s quite common in fact for heroes to be resented for enduring hardship and sacrifice in order to lift others. Heroes are willing to go through whatever is necessary in order to help those who need it, and as they let themselves go through pain, humiliation, and hopelessness, they gradually grow to shine as larger-than-life, apparently superhuman figures in the real world who inspire others to reach for their own heroic possibilities.
Now, there are plenty of people who work very hard to excel at physical or mental pursuits, yet who are rather self-serving. That’s not heroic. Heroism is not about having superhuman abilities; it’s about learning how to do superhuman good with the abilities you have.
You do not need to wait to have greater abilities than you already have in order to be heroic. Heroes are those who use their own abilities to selflessly help others, in whatever ways they can. As we start with the desire to help, using the abilities we have, then our abilities naturally increase. As we humbly help in little ways, we grow more prepared and able to see how the world needs our unique, personal strengths in larger ways.
Stand tall as you, as the Sentinel you are, with your own style, your own experiences and insights and particular skills. Just be you, and learn how to get out of your own way. You can be a hero. You can stand and protect the things that no one else will, saving the world in personal ways so that necessary truths will not be lost or forgotten. The more you grow into the full measure of the ISTJ Sentinel you’ve already always been, the more successful, fulfilling, and irrevocably happy you can become, because it will just be who you are.
aLittleBitofPersonality.com –
a celebration of people with your adorable host, an ENTP
Recent Comments