The Problem with Complacency

--Life passes you by

Potential Unfulfilled; Refusal to Progress

I was discussing this idea with my roommate earlier today and we came to the following conclusion: complacency manifests itself in a disparate amount of ways and it our way of protecting ourselves from disappointment and failure.

We're all victims of this. How many of us haven't heard Nelson Mandela's thoughts on our greatest fear? We are, in fact, quite afraid of our own potential to become great through absorbing the inspired ideas, perspectives, creations around us. We are afraid of furthering our discovery of the wondrous possibilities we are capable of achieving because our conscious would then hold us responsible for that newly attained and broadened view of life around us.

The fact of the matter is that we are refusing to become a better version of ourselves because we'd rather sit on the sidelines and await for somebody braver to step forward and guide us.

I turn you to the following thought:

"A man's work is in danger of deteriorating when he thinks he has found the one best formula for doing it. If he thinks that, he is likely to feel that all he needs is merely to go on repeating himself . . . so long as a person is searching for better ways of doing his work, he is fairly safe."

(EUGENE O'NEILL)

How many extraordinary life experiences are you missing out on because you refuse to open your mind and your heart to the world around you? How many people's paths could you have directed in a better path? Whose presence would have permanently widened your understanding and enriched your life if you had simply paid closer attention?

Do not fall into the trap of complacency. Avoid meaningless relationships, friendships, experiences like the plague. Fight the fear. Be great and surround yourself with greatness.

In closing, another quote:

"I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all for fear of being carried off their feet...they may finally become so engrossed in a cowardly love of immediate pleasures that their interest in their own future and in that of their descendants may vanish, and that they will prefer tamely to follow the course of their destiny rather than make a sudden energetic effort necessary to set things right. "

(ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE)