Your life will be no better than the plans you make, and the action you take. You are the architect and builder of your own life, fortune, and destiny. — Alfred Montapert

I think it must be one of the most amazing feelings to be able to step back from a magnificent building you’ve designed and see it standing there – this huge sculpture, a machine for living and/or working in. How much more so if we are considering ourselves. In the case of this building an individual person came up with the idea – I don’t care how much we like to believe there’s a team for everything, the reality is there’s always just one person who has an idea.

Pretty quickly thereafter someone else gets involved and the idea grows and is modified and grows again – everybody takes a view and makes their contribution – huge or humble – and soon the building is finished.

When we work on building ourselves the building of ourselves is not so quickly finished – it takes literally a lifetime. Somewhere by about the age of 10-12 the average person is pretty much set up, and from there it’s more about refinement or enhancement rather than an entirely new set of plans and a new building. It takes an exceptional person to be able to help a young person make good or even great choices. I believe it’s a lucky child who finds a ‘teacher’ (inside or outside of a school setting) who knows just how to give exactly the right firm but loving push on the right path.

And then it is, for the most part, over to the individual to do the planning and the building. I believe it’s rare for the ‘teacher’ to be around to see the triumphant end result – a person who has become a complete expression of their own positive potential. That’s a complete blessing for them both.

Manifesto
04. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate the promise of the future.
11. Every day do something for someone else.
43. Every day accept you will make mistakes. Learn from them. They are opportunities in disguise.