Uniquely Human
Transcribed from: http://www.earlmann.com
Remember it is your responsibility to expect this to be a great day!
Your past does not dictate who you can be, but the things you go through can dictate what you can become if you have the foresight and the fortitude to have an objective view of your life as a constantly refining event.
One analogy I like to use often that I think people can relate to is that of a mouse on a treadmill. If you imagine a mouse on a treadmill and that cheese out in front of him, and that mouse is just running away, running away, moving nowhere but just expending all of that energy. For most people, if they do not have a purpose in life, if they do not have a direction in life, then what they are doing is pretty much very close to that. They’re just burning a lot of energy. Some people working easier than other, but most people hard though getting nowhere, going nowhere and getting agitated, stressed out, and sometimes even pissed off at things in general because of the fact that they’re just not moving anywhere. A lot of it has to do with how they define their identity. Let me give you another way to look at that.
Let’s imagine our friend the mouse suddenly got a goal, a purpose in life, some place he was trying to go, and all of the sudden, he realized that running on the treadmill, if he viewed it the right way, was not something he did to get through the day, it was something he got out of the day. It was something he used to increase his muscular strength. It was something he used to increase his cardiovascular capability. What if that mouse started to train as he ran on that treadmill? What if that mouse started to talk to other people that had used the treadmill as a training device? What if that mouse got stronger and stronger and stronger and over time that mouse was even pushing the limits of the treadmill and over time that mouse became strong, became stronger and one day, that mouse became so strong that he could just stop? And the force from him taking that action could completely shatter the motor of that treadmill. Wow! Look out from that treadmill! Look out into the world and declare I am not a rat!
If you think about that story, working hard is not uniquely human. Running away from pain is not uniquely human. Most animals do that. Fighting to keep something you love is not uniquely human. Driving yourself to higher purpose is uniquely human. Seeing a possible future and dedicating your activities now is a uniquely human event. Dedicating yourself, sacrificing today for a better tomorrow is a uniquely human event. Purposefully defining challenging moments of today as preparation for better times tomorrow is a uniquely human event.
Now what I’m trying to tell you is that yes, you’re on a treadmill of some sort. Yes, you’re in a challenge of some sort, but if you can do the uniquely human thing and define it as refining, then you can step off of that treadmill and declare unto the world that you are not a rat!
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