Upward Bound

By Bruce Shawkey

There are two kinds of people you can learn a great deal from: people who are moving upward in life, and people who are slowly sliding backward.

From the first group, you learn what works — good habits, strong attitudes, discipline, persistence. From the second, you learn what to avoid. Their mistakes often look painfully familiar, because they’re the same kinds of mistakes many of us have made ourselves at one time or another.

I enjoy listening to people talk about their lives, their struggles, their ambitions, their regrets, and the ways they’ve changed over time. To me, there’s nothing more interesting. I often come away feeling more energized than I would from almost any game or entertainment.

Over the years, I’ve thought of myself as a collector of human experiences—my own and other people’s. The more closely you watch human nature, the more clearly certain patterns begin to appear.

Successful people are rarely perfect, but they tend to share certain qualities: curiosity, resilience, optimism, and the ability to keep moving after setbacks.

People who become bitter or defeated usually slide there gradually — through discouragement, resentment, fear, excuse-making, or simply giving up on growth.

Watching both groups teaches you something valuable.  One shows you roads worth following. The other shows you roads better avoided.

I sometimes think of myself as a collector of human experiences — my own and other people’s. The nice thing about that kind of collection is that you can give it away without losing it yourself.

The people who leave the strongest impression are often the ones who stop obsessing over what they can get and start thinking about what they can give. Ironically, that is often when success begins to follow them.